<p>In conventional catalysis the reactants interact with specific sites
of the catalyst in such a way that the reaction barrier is lowered and the
reaction rate is accelerated. Here we take a radically different approach to
catalysis by strongly coupling the vibrations of the reactants to the vacuum
electromagnetic field of a cavity. To demonstrate the possibility of such
cavity catalysis, we have studied hydrolysis reactions under strong coupling of
the OH stretching mode of water to a Fabry-Pérot (FP) microfluidic cavity mode.
This results in an exceptionally large Rabi splitting energy ℏΩ<sub>R</sub> of 92 meV (740 cm<sup>−1</sup>), indicating the system is in
vibrational ultra-strong coupling (V-USC) regime and we have found that it
enhances the hydrolysis reaction rate of cyanate ions by 10<sup>2</sup> times
and that of ammonia borane by 10<sup>4</sup> times. This catalytic ability is
shown to depend only upon the cavity tuning and the coupling ratio. Given the
vital importance of water for life and human activities, we expect our finding
not only offers an unconventional way of controlling chemical reactions by
ultra-strong light-matter interactions, but also changes the landscape of
chemistry in a fundamental way.</p>
Vacuum Rabi splitting of a dark plasmonic cavity mode revealed by fast electrons
