Cavity control of nonlinear phononics

Understand

Nonlinear interactions between phonon modes govern the behavior of vibrationally highly excited solids and molecules.

• Here, we demonstrate theoretically that optical cavities can be used to control the redistribution of energy from a highly excited coherent infrared-active phonon state into the other vibrational degrees of freedom of the system.
• The hybridization of the infrared-active phonon mode with the fundamental mode of the cavity induces a polaritonic splitting that we use to tune the nonlinear interactions with other vibrational modes in and out of resonance.
• We show that not only can the efficiency of the redistribution of energy be enhanced or decreased, but also the underlying scattering mechanisms may be changed.