Influence of polarization fluctuations on the electronic structure of molecular solids

Fluctuations in the intermolecular polarization energies of charge states in molecular solids can lead to broad (ΔE ≈ 0.5 eV) distributions of localized states, especially in polymers. Such fluctuations are caused by defects (e.g. surfaces) and thermal vibrations in molecular crystals and also by variations in the local structure in polymers. The resulting energy distributions yield natural interpretations of such diverse observations on the broadening of the photoemission spectra of molecular solids and the contact charge exchange spectra of polymers.