RATES OF REACTIONS IN A DARK (NO LIGHT) CAVITY: THREE PUZZLES AND THEIR SOLUTIONS

RATES OF REACTIONS IN A DARK (NO LIGHT) CAVITY: THREE PUZZLES AND THEIR SOLUTIONS

25/06/2023

Chemistry Faculty Seminar Room

12:30PM

Prof. Nimrod Moiseyev Schulich Faculty of Chemistry, Technion

Physical-Chemistry Seminar

Ebbesen from Strasburg opened a new field of research where the rate of chemical reactions are either enhanced or suppressed by carrying them in a dark cavity. The dark cavity consists of two parallel planar mirrors where their area is about 1cm^2, whereas the distance between them was varied around 0.0001 centimeters. The open questions left to explain the observations are as follow: 1) why is the effect of the cavity on reaction’s rate sensitive to the distance between the two mirrors; 2) why is the rate as function of the strength of the coupling between the molecules and the cavity  more sensitive to the volume of the cavity rather than to the distance between the mirrors as one would intuitively expect; 3) why is the effect of the cavity on the reaction’s rate so sensitive to the specific reaction under study and to the cavity parameters.

In my talk I will explain the three puzzles based on geometric classical optics (Snail law) and also based on quantum optics.  The solutions to the three puzzles are given using basic principles of quantum electromagnetic theory and close the gap between theory and experiments that exists today.  Last but not least, based on non-Hermitian transition state theory we provide an outline for future systematic studies that would enable a comparison between theoretical and experimental results