Researchers have found that combining light with matter could generate a new class of matter known as hybrid polaritons. The study of hybrid polaritons could lead to faster, more efficient chemical reactions.
Dr. Xiong and Dr. Zhou wanted to find out whether polariton modes and dark modes (the molecular byproduct of polariton creation) both modify chemical reactions by using two-dimensional infrared spectroscopy on a simple chemical reaction that is easier to analyze.
Previous experiments used complex systems that could not separate the effects of the light-matter interaction from the effects of the chemical reaction itself, making it impossible to determine what was occurring with either the matter or the light alone.
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More information: Teng-Teng Chen et al, Cavity-enabled enhancement of ultrafast intramolecular vibrational redistribution over pseudorotation, Science (2022). DOI: 10.1126/science.add0276.