Photoexcitation of quadrupolar dyes—key materials for various optoelectronic applications—induces an excited-state symmetry-breaking charge-transfer process with unknown microscopic origin. Now it has been shown that vibronic coupling to high-frequency backbone modes drives the initial ultrafast symmetry breaking before solvation, distinguishing fundamental intramolecular dynamics from solvent-induced charge localization.
- Katrin Winte
- Somayeh Souri
- Christoph Lienau
