Related papers: Suppressing photochemical reactions with quantized…
Many natural and artificial reactions including photosynthesis or photopolymerization are initiated by stimulating organic molecules into an excited state, which enables new reaction paths. Controlling light-matter interaction can influence…
We investigate photoisomerization (PI), the shape change of a molecule upon photoabsorption, in a dissipative environment using a simple spin-boson model. We identify two classes of environment depending on whether it "entangles" with the…
Photochromic molecular structures constitute a unique platform for constructing molecular switches, sensors and memory devices. One of their most promising applications is as light-switchable electron acceptor or donor units. Here, we…
Photodissociation is the dominant removal process of molecules in any region exposed to intense ultraviolet (UV) radiation. This includes diffuse and translucent interstellar clouds, dense photon-dominated regions, high velocity shocks, the…
The formation of hybrid light-molecule states (polaritons) offers a new strategy to manipulate the photochemistry of molecules. To fully exploit its potential, one needs to build a toolbox of polaritonic phenomenologies that supplement…
A photosensitive amphiphilic molecule can switch the shape of an assembled vesicle as determined by microscopic observation. Photo-isomerization induces a change in membrane fluctuation behavior or a morphological transition between…
Photoisomerization, a photochemical process underlying many biological mechanisms, has been modeled recently within the quantum resource theory of thermodynamics. This approach has emerged as a promising tool for studying fundamental…
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,…
Conventional photocells suffer a fundamental efficiency threshold imposed by the principle of detailed balance, reflecting the fact that good absorbers must necessarily also be fast emitters. This limitation can be overcome by `parking' the…
When the interaction between a molecular system and confined light modes in an optical or plasmonic cavity is strong enough to overcome the dissipative process, hybrid light-matter states (polaritons) become the fundamental excitations in…
Laser cooling of atomic motion enables a wide variety of technological and scientific explorations using cold atoms. Here we focus on the effect of laser cooling on the photons instead of on the atoms. Specifically, we show that…
Recently, an article by the Barnes group reported on the experimental study of a photoisomerization reaction inside an optical cavity, claiming to reproduce previous results by Hutchison et al. and making the point that in such setups,…
Photoactive proteins absorb light and undergo structural changes that enable them to perform essential biological functions. These proteins are critical for understanding light-induced biological processes, making them important in…
Intermixed light-matter quasiparticles - polaritons - possess unique optical properties owned to their compositional nature. These intriguing hybrid states have been extensively studied over the past decades in a wide range of realizations…
We use molecular dynamics simulations to unravel the physics underpinning the light-induced density changes caused by the dynamic trans-cis-trans isomerization cycles of azo-mesogens embedded in a liquid crystal polymer network, an…
The evaporation of water is ubiquitous in nature and industrial technologies. The known mechanism for evaporation is "thermal evaporation" which highlights the energy input for evaporation is via heat. Due to the weak absorption of water to…
Bose condensed light can form new phases [1] in a dye filled cavity due to the presence of the orientational disorder created by dye molecules which are essentially frozen on the time scale of the photonic thermalization (few ps). At longer…
A fundamental issue that limits the efficiency of many photoelectrochemical systems is that the photon absorption length is typically much longer than the electron diffusion length. Various photon management schemes have been developed to…
Solar thermal fuels (STFs) are an unconventional paradigm for solar energy conversion and storage which is attracting renewed attention. In this concept, a material absorbs sunlight and stores the energy chemically via an induced structural…
Strong light-matter interactions are gaining importance in controlling the photoswitching behavior of molecules exhibiting bistability. Here, we used the strategy of electronic strong coupling of both the E and Z-isomers of azopyrrole…