Title: Molecular Polaritons: Steering chemical dynamics with optical microcavities
Abstract: Molecular polaritons are the optical quasiparticles which emerge from the strong interaction of molecules with the confined electromagnetic field of microcavities. These hybrid systems have been shown to undergo nontrivial and tunable chemical dynamics, which can be manipulated to direct chemical processes.
In this talk, I am going to present some of our recent research on the manipulation of molecular dynamics with optical microcavities. First, I will illustrate how exciton strong coupling can be harnessed to enhance singlet fission yield and to induce long-range energy transfer in organic semiconductors. I will then, focus on the many-body quantum correlations which arise when molecular phonons interact strongly with infrared microcavities and introduce the theory we constructed to interpret the first nonlinear optical spectra measured for these systems. I will conclude with a discussion of potential applications of strongly-coupled chemistry to the engineering of molecular-based quantum fluids.