Vibronically assisted sub-cycle charge transfer at a non-fullerene acceptor heterojunction

Excited-state charge transfer underpins organic photovoltaics, photocatalysis and photodetection, but is traditionally thought to require large energy offsets and strong donor-acceptor coupling that can limit device performance. Here, we investigate through-space polymer non-fullerene-acceptor based model heterojunctions in which a perylene diimide acceptor is covalently tethered to a low-bandgap polymer donor. These systems feature an exceptionally small energy offset (< 100 meV) between frontier orbitals, with weak donor-acceptor coupling in the Franck-Condon region. We nevertheless achieve a charge-transfer timescale of ~18 fs. This ultrafast charge-transfer is accompanied via the launch of coherent wavepackets along a high-frequency vibrational coordinate (26 fs period) on the non-fullerene acceptor's potential energy surface. We uncover specific polymer-centered driving vibrational modes that enable such rapid charge-transfer rates, by mixing Frenkel exciton and charge-transfer states following photoexcitation. Our results demonstrate that ultrafast charge-transfer can be achieved-ultimately limited by high-frequency vibrational periods-even in the absence of large energy offsets or strong ground-state coupling.