About the speaker: Professor Oriol Vendrell from University of Heidelberg is the leader of the Theoretical Chemistry Group. His interests lie in molecular polaritonics, ultrafast molecular science and quantum dynamics.
Abstract: Polaritonic Chemistry has emerged in recent years as a quickly evolving field
where new and exciting experimental and theoretical results appear in rapid
succession. At its core is the aim of modifying, and ultimately controlling
chemical processes with confined electromagnetic radiation instead of the usual
approach with optical or infrared lasers (1). From a different perspective,
molecules can be used to tune the properties of confined light, thus
providing a handle on properties such as energy transport in materials (2).
In this talk, I will introduce the key concepts behind this paradigm and
will discuss the main challenges and opportunities. These will be
illustrated with recent theoretical results from our group covering
excited-state, non-adiabatic chemical reactions (2,3), ground-state,
thermally activated chemistry (4), and excitonic-polaritonic transport (5).
(1) Thomas, A.; Lethuillier-Karl, L.; Nagarajan, K.; Vergauwe, R. M. A.; George,
J.; Chervy, T.; Shalabney, A.; Devaux, E.; Genet, C.; Moran, J.; Ebbesen, T. W.
Tilting a Ground-State Reactivity Landscape by Vibrational Strong Coupling.
Science 2019, 363 (6427), 615–619.
https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aau7742.
(2) G Sandik, J. Feist, F.J. García-Vidal, T. Schwartz
Cavity-enhanced energy transport in molecular systems
Nat. Materials 2024.
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-024-01962-5
(2) Ulusoy, I. S.; Gomez, J. A.; Vendrell, O.
Modifying the Nonradiative Decay Dynamics through Conical Intersections via Collective Coupling to a Cavity Mode.
J. Phys. Chem. A 2019, 123 (41), 8832–8844.
https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpca.9b07404.
(3) Krupp, N; Vendrell, O. Collective rovibronic dynamics of a diatomic gas coupled by cavity
Physical Review Research 2024, 6, 033134
https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevResearch.6.033134
(4) Sun, J.; Vendrell, O.
On the Suppression and Enhancement of Thermal Chemical Rates in a Cavity.
J. Phys. Chem. Lett. 2022, 13, 4441
https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpclett.2c00974
(5) Krupp, N; Groenhof G.; Vendrell, O.
Quantum dynamics simulation of exciton-polariton transport
http://arxiv.org/abs/2410.23739