Singlet fission is a spin-allowed exciton multiplication process in organic semiconductors that converts one spin-singlet exciton to two triplet excitons. It offers the potential to enhance solar energy conversion by circumventing the Shockley-Queisser limit on efficiency. We study the primary steps of singlet fission in a pentacene film by using a combination of TG and 2D electronic spectroscopy complemented by quantum chemical and nonadiabatic dynamics calculations. We show that the coherent vibrational dynamics induces the ultrafast transition from the singlet excited electronic state to the triplet-pair state via a degeneracy of potential energy surfaces, i.e., a multidimensional conical intersection. Significant vibronic coupling of the electronic wave packet to a few key intermolecular rocking modes in the low-frequency region connect the excited singlet and triplet-pair states. Along with high-frequency local vibrations acting as tuning modes, they open a new channel for the ultrafast exciton transfer through the resulting conical intersection.

The unprecedented success of hybrid organic− inorganic lead halide perovskites in photovoltaics motivates fundamental research to unravel the underlying microscopic mechanism for photoinduced charge generation. Recent studies suggest that most photoexcitations in perovskites are free charge carriers, although the contribution of the electron−hole pairs (i.e., excitons) at room temperature has been a matter of debate. We have employed ultrafast two-dimensional (2D) electronic spectroscopy to directly probe the elementary optical excitation of CH 3 NH 3 PbI 3 thin films with ∼16 fs temporal resolution. We distinctly capture the ultrafast dissociation of excitons to the charge carriers at room temperature and at 180 K. Interestingly, we also observe that the coherent oscillations of the off-diagonal signals in the 2D electronic spectra live for ∼50 fs at room temperature. The entropy-driven dissociation of excitons to charge carriers happens within the electronic dephasing time scale and is favored by the low exciton binding energy, which we determine to be ∼12 meV at room temperature. This ultrafast dissociation of excitons to charge carriers can be one of the important contributions to the high efficiency of perovskite-based photovoltaics.