Correlated aggregate model of self-healing in dye-doped polymers

Self healing of chromophores in a dye-doped polymer after photodegradation is a counterintuitive process based on the nearly universal observation that molecular damage is a thermodynamically irreversible process. We propose a new simple model of this phenomenon that takes into account all observations, including the effects of concentration, temperature, and bystander states. Critical to this model are correlations between chromophores, perhaps mediated by the polymer, which actively favors the undamaged species in analogy to Bose-Einstein condensation. We use this model to predict the behavior of decay and recovery experiments as measured with amplified spontaneous emission and absorption spectroscopy.