Recent advancements on the fabrication of organic micro- and nanostructures have permitted the ultrastrong collective light-matter coupling regime to be reached with dense samples of highly absorptive molecular materials confined in optical microcavities. This regime is characterized by a coupling that is much larger than the molecular optical gap. We have studied whether it is possible using ultrastrong coupling to introduce any modifications in the electronic ground energy landscape of molecules which could affect chemical thermodynamics and/or kinetics. Our findings (L. A. Martínez-Martínez, et. al., ACS Photonics 5, 167 (2018)) reveal that the energetic changes per molecule are determined by single-molecule-light couplings which are essentially local, in contrast with those of the first electronically excited states, for which energetic corrections are of collective nature. We provide an outlook of further possibilities to explore in this frontier topic in physical chemistry.

Ultrastrong coupling in optical microcavities

256th National Meeting (2018)

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