Abstract

Sufficient confinement of electromagnetic modes leads to a frequent exchange of energy between molecules and light, resulting in the creation of hybrid light-matter states, called polaritons. Here, I illustrate how spectral design with polaritons is utilized to reach mode- and enantiomer-selective catalysis. We discuss that strong interaction between optical modes and vibrational modes leads to changes in chemical rate constants [1,2]. Theoretical predictions from real-time quantum electrodynamical density-functional theory and machine learning models are the first to find qualitative agreement with experiment and hint at a modification of vibrational energy redistribution as possible mechanism. The confined optical modes depend on the structure of the resonator, i.e., control over chemistry is up to our design of the resonator. We close our discussion with a perspective on how chiral resonators can imprint enantiomer selectivity [3,4] and how plasmonic catalysis can be boosted six-fold [5].

[1] C. Schäfer, J. Flick, E. Ronca, P. Narang, and A. Rubio, Nature Communications, (2022) 13:7817. [2] C. Schäfer, J. Fojt, E. Lindgren, and P. Erhart, J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2024, 146, 8, 5402-5413. [3] C. Schäfer, D. Baranov, J. Phys. Chem. Lett. 2023, 14, 15, 3777-3784. [4] D. Baranov, C. Schäfer, M. Gorkunov, ACS Photonics 2023, 10, 8, 2440-2455. [5] J. Fojt, P. Erhart, C. Schäfer, Nano Lett. 2024, 24, 38, 11913–11920