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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

A research team at The University of Tokyo has introduced a powerful method for actively breaking chemical bonds using excitations in tiny antennae created by infrared lasers. This process may have applications throughout chemistry as a way to direct chemical reactions in desired directions. In particular, the reactions used in the energy, pharmaceutical, and manufacturing sectors may become much more efficient by increasing yields while reducing waste.

[...] One way to control which bonds are broken during a chemical reaction is to get molecules vibrating by exciting them with infrared laser light. Since each type of chemical bond absorbs a particular wavelength of light, they can be activated individually. Unfortunately, it is difficult to deliver enough energy throughout the sample to generate the vibration intensity required. The team at The University of Tokyo was able to overcome this problem by fabricating tiny gold antennae, each just 300 nanometers wide, and by illuminating them with infrared lasers. When infrared light of the right frequency was present, the electrons in the antennae oscillated back and forth in resonance with the light waves, which created a very intense electric field. This phenomenon is called a "plasmonic resonance," and requires that the antennae be just the right shape and size. The plasmonic resonance focused the laser's energy on nearby molecules, which started vibrating. The vibration was further boosted by shaping the waveform of the infrared laser so that the frequency changed rapidly in time, reminiscent of the chirping of birds. "This successfully demonstrated that the combination of ultrafast optics and nano-plasmonics is useful for efficient, selective vibrational excitation," says senior author Satoshi Ashihara.

In the future, this technique may be applied to the production of cleaner fuels or cheaper pharmaceuticals as the chemical processes become optimized.

Original Submission