Interaction between light and matter is one of the most common scientific phenomena in everyday life, from the sunlight reflecting off the landscape early in the morning to the light emitted by our computer screens late at night. Yet, the deeper scientific understanding remains a fascinating area of research with many unknowns. In an impressive new study by Ahn et al. published in Science, the interaction between light and matter was studied by coupling molecular vibrations to microcavity modes. The rate of a chemical reaction was shown to be changed by tuning the microcavity modes.
The paper references our earlier work, in which an AI model was used to find an optimal shape of a light pulse to maintain quantum coherence for a longer period of time. Coherent quantum states are used for quantum computation, but such states are fragile and decay quickly unless they are actively protected against decoherence. Although the primary result of our work was the demonstration that it is possible to teach a system to steer itself towards a more robust quantum state as a proof of principle, the rate of improvement was still rather modest. In the slightly different context of chemical reactions, Ahn et al. achieved a whopping 80% suppression of reaction rate. An impressive result, which is opening up new opportunities for scientific research and innovation.
We observed up to an 80% suppression of the rate by tuning cavity modes to be resonant with the reactant isocyanate (NCO) stretch, the product carbonyl (CO) stretch, and cooperative reactant-solvent modes (CH). These results were interpreted using an open quantum system model that predicted resonant modifications of the vibrational distribution of reactants from canonical statistics as a result of light–matter quantum coherences, suggesting links to explore between chemistry and quantum science.
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