Cavity-controlled chemistry in molecular ensembles

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates how cavity quantum electrodynamics can be used to decouple electronic and vibrational molecular modes, significantly enhancing electron transfer rates and offering new control over chemical reactions at the nanoscale.

Contribution

It introduces a novel mechanism of polaron decoupling via cavity coupling, enabling control over chemical dynamics in disordered molecular ensembles.

Findings

Electron transfer rates can be increased by orders of magnitude in a cavity.

Strong resonant coupling decouples electronic and vibrational degrees of freedom.

The method applies to a wide range of organic molecules.

Abstract

The demonstration of strong and ultrastrong coupling regimes of cavity QED with polyatomic molecules has opened new routes to control chemical dynamics at the nanoscale. We show that strong resonant coupling of a cavity field with an electronic transition can effectively decouple collective electronic and nuclear degrees of freedom in a disordered molecular ensemble, even for molecules with high-frequency quantum vibrational modes having strong electron-vibration interactions. This type of polaron decoupling can be used to control chemical reactions. We show that the rate of electron transfer reactions in a cavity can be orders of magnitude larger than in free space, for a wide class of organic molecular species.