Resonant and collective modification of London dispersion interactions under vibrational strong coupling

Experiments have shown that, by tuning a microcavity to resonance with a vibrational mode of the molecules contained within it, one can modify chemical properties, such as reaction rates.

This gives rise to the exciting prospect of steering chemical reactivity, just by placing a pair of carefully spaced mirrors around the reaction mixture.

However, a decade after the first demonstration, the mechanism behind this effect remains ill-understood.

Here, we show how vibrational strong coupling can lead to resonant modification of vibrationally-resolved London dispersion interactions.

Employing a mixed quantum-classical dynamics scheme, we then show how this in turn can give rise to resonant rate enhancement in the case of two molecules strongly coupled to the cavity mode, for all regimes of solvent friction.

The resonant changes of the London dispersion interaction seem to persist when increasing the number of molecules.

Whether this also leads to altered reaction rates in the experimentally relevant collective limit remains an open question, as this regime falls outside the range of applicability of our mixed quantum-classical dynamics approach.

Nevertheless, the framework presented here offers an exciting new avenue to explore, and hopefully bring us a step closer towards explaining the mechanism behind vibropolaritonic chemistry.