Polaritonic Chemistry with Organic Molecules

• Published in: ACS photonics Vol. 5; no. 1; pp. 205 - 216
• Main Authors: Feist, Johannes, Galego, Javier, Garcia-Vidal, Francisco J.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: American Chemical Society 17.01.2018
• Subjects: organic molecules; polaritonic chemistry; photochemistry; quantum optics
• ISSN: 2330-4022; 2330-4022
• DOI: 10.1021/acsphotonics.7b00680

We present an overview of the general concepts of polaritonic chemistry with organic molecules, i.e., the manipulation of chemical structure that can be achieved through strong coupling between confined light modes and organic molecules. Strong coupling and the associated formation of polaritons, hybrid light–matter excitations, lead to energy shifts in such systems that can amount to a large fraction of the uncoupled transition energy. This has recently been shown to significantly alter the chemical structure of the coupled molecules, which opens the possibility to manipulate and control reactions. We discuss the current state of theory for describing these changes and present several applications, with a particular focus on the collective effects observed when many molecules are involved in strong coupling.