Non-polaritonic effects in cavity-modified photochemistry
arXiv:2306.05506 · doi:10.1002/adma.202309393
Abstract
Strong coupling of molecules to vacuum fields has been widely reported to lead to modified chemical properties such as reaction rates. However, some recent attempts to reproduce infrared strong coupling results have not been successful, suggesting that factors other than strong coupling may sometimes be involved. Here we re-examine the first of these vacuum-modified chemistry experiments in which changes to a molecular photoisomerisation process in the UV-vis spectral range were attributed to strong coupling of the molecules to visible light. We observed significant variations in photoisomerisation rates consistent with the original work; however, we found no evidence that these changes need to be attributed to strong coupling. Instead, we suggest that the photoisomerisation rates involved are most strongly influenced by the absorption of ultraviolet radiation in the cavity. Our results indicate that care must be taken to rule out non-polaritonic effects before invoking strong coupling to explain any changes of chemical properties arising in cavity-based experiments.
33 pages, 17 figures
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- Multiple Interacting Photonic Modes in Strongly Coupled Organic Microcavities
- Response to Comment on "Non-Polaritonic Effects in Cavity-Modified Photochemistry": On the Importance of Experimental Details
- Direct readout of excited state lifetimes in chlorin chromophores under electronic strong coupling
- Polariton-induced Purcell effects via a reduced semiclassical electrodynamics approach
- Mirror-induced effects in cavity polaritonics: Influence on edge states