2017/04/24 by Javier Galego, Francisco J. Garcia-Vidal, Johannes Feist · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #physics.chem-ph #cond-mat.mes-hall #quant-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.119.136001
published as Phys. Rev. Lett. 119, 136001 (2017) · 5 pages, 2 figures
arxiv created 2017/04/24 · arxiv updated 2017/10/04
The second law of photochemistry states that in most cases, no more than one molecule is activated for an excited-state reaction for each photon absorbed by a collection of molecules. In this work, we demonstrate that it is possible to trigger a many-molecule reaction using only one photon by strongly coupling the molecular ensemble to a confined light mode. The collective nature of the resulting hybrid states of the system (the so-called polaritons) leads to the formation of a polaritonic "supermolecule" involving the degrees of freedom of all molecules, opening a reaction path on which all involved molecules undergo a chemical transformation. We theoretically investigate the system conditions for this effect to take place and be enhanced.