Abstract
High yields of the radical cations of oligodiacetylenes have been prepared by photoinduced electron transfer using a positively charged cosensitizer and by pulse radiolysis. The absorption maxima of the oligodiacetylene (ODA) radical cations show a bathochromic shift to the infrared region and a large increase of their lifetimes with chain elongation. Their reactivity toward nucleophiles decreases for longer ODAs, illustrating clearly the stabilizing effect of charge delocalization along the oligomeric chain. This also implies a very low reactivity of ODA radical cations toward trace amounts of water in optoelectronic devices.