# Role of coherence in the plasmonic control of molecular absorption

## TL;DR

This paper investigates how environmental decoherence influences nanoplasmonic effects on molecular absorption, revealing that decoherence can significantly alter absorption behavior and should be considered in designing molecular nanoplasmonic systems.

## Contribution

It introduces a multiscale model that incorporates environment-induced dephasing to analyze the impact of decoherence on nanoplasmonic molecular absorption.

## Key findings

- Decoherence can suppress or enhance molecular absorption effects.
- Environmental effects significantly alter nanoplasmonic interactions.
- Decoherence is a crucial factor in designing nanoplasmonic systems.

## Abstract

The interpretation of nanoplasmonic effects on molecular properties, such as metal-enhanced absorption or fluorescence, typically assumes a fully coherent picture (in the quantum-mechanical sense) of the phenomena. Yet, there may be conditions where the coherent picture breaks down, and decoherence effect should be accounted for. Using a state-of-the-art multiscale model approach able to include environment-induced dephasing, here we show that metal nanoparticle effects on the light absorption by a nearby molecule is strongly affected (even qualitatively, i.e., suppression vs enhancement) by molecular electronic decoherence. The present work shows that decoherence can be thought as a further design element of molecular nanoplasmonic systems.