Speaker
Description
In vibrational strong coupling, certain vibrational modes of molecules resonantly interact with the light modes confined by the cavity. The so-called polaritons formed by the strong interaction between light and matter share characteristics of both constituents, especially the non-local features of light. And indeed, experiments have highlighted that cavities can effect the energy transfer in molecular systems [Xiang et al., Science. 368.6491, 2020.].
In this talk, we present an in-depth investigation of the impact of strong
coupling between a resonator mode with the vibrational modes of water. For
this we employ machine-learning potentials combined with molecular dynamics to compare the dynamics of bulk water inside and outside of cavities. First results show faster redistribution of heat from hot vibrational modes into the bulk when coupled to a cavity compared to a system in free space.
At heart, this appears to originate from modified heat transfer under strong coupling and may provide insights into understanding clustering behavior under vibrational strong coupling [Dang et al., J. Phys. Chem. Lett. 16.47, 2025.
Sandeep et al., Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 138.1, 2026.].