Fig. 5: Potential energy curves of the motor 1 strongly coupled to a single cavity.
From: Dynamics of a light-driven molecular rotary motor in an optical cavity
a Profiles of polaritonic states along the dihedral (dih) angle θ for the ZM → EP photoreaction. The relaxed scan was obtained by constraining the dihedral angle in the ground polaritonic state. The cavity mode frequency is tuned to the vertical excitation energy of the ZM structure, i.e., 3.54 eV. The black dots in the main plot show the positions of two conical intersections, CI1 and CI2, between the \(\vert {\Phi }_{0}^{A}\big\rangle\) and \(\vert {\Phi }_{1}^{A}\big\rangle\) polaritonic states. The values (ϕ, θ) of the pyramidalization and dihedral angles of the ZM, CI1, CI2, and EP structures are (−1.39°, 345.8°), (−18.0°, 267.8°), (16.2°, 265.2°), and (−1.36°, 202.6°), respectively. The rectangular region in the main plot is magnified in the inset next to it. The dotted lines in the inset show the uncoupled states; see Fig. 2 for more detail. b The same for the EP → ZM photoreaction. The cavity mode is tuned to 3.3 eV, which corresponds to the vertical excitation energy of the EP structure. The values (ϕ, θ) of the pyramidalization and dihedral angles of the EP, CI1, CI2, and ZM structures are (−1.36°, 202.6°), (−18.0°, 267.8°), (16.2°, 265.2°), and (−1.39°, 345.8°), respectively. Note that the same range of the central dihedral angle θ is chosen in panels (a) and (b); which means that the ZM structure corresponds to θ ≈ 360°. Source data are provided as a Source Data file.
