Wednesday, 3 March 11:00am – 12:00pm

This seminar will be delivered via Zoom – Please email chemistry.researchsupport@sydney.edu.au for zoom link and password.

Speaker: Professor Joel Yuen-Zhou; University of California San Diego

Host: Associate Professor Ivan Kassal

Title: Polariton chemistry – Molecules in optical cavities

Abstract:

Organic molecules interact strongly with confined electromagnetic fields in plasmonic arrays or optical microcavities owing to their bright transition dipole moments. This interaction gives rise to molecular polaritons, hybrid light-matter quasiparticles. Molecular polaritonics opens doors for new room-temperature opportunities for the nontrivial control of physico-chemical properties of molecular assemblies [1]. In this talk, I’ll showcase some of these opportunities that we have been theoretically (and, together with our experimental collaborators) exploring in the past few years. I will briefly discuss the relevant time and energy scales associated with molecular polaritons [1,2] and strategies to exploit them to control photoexcited processes including singlet fission [3], triplet harvesting [4], remote [5-6] and topologically-protected energy transfer [7-9], and anomalous nonlinear optical effects [10-12]. Finally, I will conclude by explaining how vibrational polaritons can steer ground-state chemical reactions even in the absence of optical pumping [13], or be used to realize exotic processes such as remote control of chemical reactions [14].

REFERENCES

[1] R. F. Ribeiro, L. Martínez-Martínez, M. Du, and J. Yuen-Zhou, Polariton chemistry: controlling molecular dynamics with optical cavities, Chem. Sci. 9, 6325-6339 (2018).

[2] L. A. Martínez-Martínez, R. F. Ribeiro, J. A. Campos-González-Angulo, and J. Yuen-Zhou, Can ultrastrong coupling change ground-state chemical reactions?, ACS Photonics 5, 167 (2018).

[3] L. A. Martínez-Martínez, M. Du, R. F. Ribeiro, S. Kena-Cohen, and J. Yuen-Zhou, Polariton-assisted singlet fission in acene aggregates, J. Phys. Chem. Lett., 9, 1951-1957 (2018) (ACS editor’s choice).

[4] L. A. Martínez-Martínez, E. Eizner, R. F. Ribeiro, S. Kena-Cohen, and J. Yuen-Zhou, J. Chem. Phys. 151, 054106 (2019)

[5] M. Du, L. A. Martínez-Martínez, R. F. Ribeiro, Z. Hu, V. M. Menon, and J. Yuen-Zhou, Theory for polariton assisted remote energy transfer, Chem. Sci. 9, 6659-6669 (2018).

[6] B. Xiang, R.F. Ribeiro, M. Du, L. Chen, Z. Yang, J. Wang, J. Yuen-Zhou, and W. Xiong, Intermolecular vibrational energy transfer enabled by microcavity strong light-matter coupling, Science 368, 6491 (2020). (*)

[7] J. Yuen-Zhou, S. K. Saikin, T. Zhu, M. Onbalsi, C. Ross, V. Bulovic, and M. Baldo, Plexcitons: Dirac points and topological modes, Nat. Commun. 7, 11783 (2016).

[8] J. Yuen-Zhou, S. Saikin, N. Yao, and A. Aspuru-Guzik, Topologically protected excitons in porphyrin thin films, Nature Mater. 13, 1026 (2014).

[9] J. Yuen-Zhou, S. K. Saikin, T. Zhu, M. Onbalsi, C. Ross, V. Bulovic, and M. Baldo, Plexcitons: Dirac points and topological modes, Nat. Commun. 7, 11783 (2016).

[10] B. Xiang, R. F. Ribeiro, A. D. Dunkelberger, J. Wang, Y. Li, B. S. Simpkins, J. C. Owrutsky, J. Yuen-Zhou, W. Xiong, Two-dimensional spectroscopy of vibrational polaritons, Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. 201722063 (2018).

[11] R. F. Ribeiro, A. D. Dunkelberger, B. Xiang, W. Xiong, B. S. Simpkins, J. C. Owrutsky, J. Yuen-Zhou, Theory for nonlinear spectroscopy of vibrational polaritons, J. Phys. Chem. Lett. 9, 13, 3766–3771 (2018).

[12] J. B. Pérez-Sánchez and J. Yuen-Zhou, Polariton assisted down-conversion of photons via nonadiabatic molecular dynamics: a molecular dynamical Casimir effect, J. Phys. Chem. Lett. 11, 1, 152 (2020).

[13] J. Campos-González-Angulo, R. F. Ribeiro, and J. Yuen-Zhou, Resonant enhancement of thermally-activated reactions via vibrational polaritons, Nat. Commun., 10, 4685 (2019).

[14] M. Du, R. F. Ribeiro, L. A. Martínez-Martínez, and J. Yuen-Zhou, Remote control of chemistry in optical cavities, Chem 5, 5, 1167 (2019). (May 2019 journal cover).