Conference: Strong Coupling with Organic Molecules (SCOM-23)

NON-TECHNICAL DESCRIPTION This award is to support the 2023 Strong Coupling with Organic Molecules 2023 Conference, to be held June 20 through 22, 2023, in San Diego, California. The conference will provide an important platform within the U.S. for the efficient exchange of ideas in the burgeoning field of molecular polaritonics. Polaritons are unique electronic state arising from strong coupling of electromagnetic waves with a material with an electric or magnetic dipole when optically excited. This will be the first time that the conference will be held in the United States, providing an opportunity to the leadership of the U.S. in the scientific discourse of the field. The event will showcase recent progress and challenges in the field, generate a cohesive community of researchers, and promote the exploitation of strong light-matter interactions to control the physicochemical properties of molecular materials. This award will provide support for early career scientists to attend the meeting and benefit from discussions and presentation of their work. TECHNICAL DESCRIPTION This conference will serve as an important platform for the efficient exchange of ideas in the burgeoning field of molecular polaritonics. The event will showcase recent progress and challenges in the field, contribute to generating a cohesive community of researchers, and promote the exploitation of strong light-matter interactions to control the electronic and photonic properties of molecular materials. Molecular polaritonics have already demonstrated control of energy transduction and novel macroscopic quantum coherent phenomena such as room-temperature Bose-Einstein condensates. Many of the mechanisms that underlie these phenomena remain unknown, and significant advances are needed on both the theoretical and experimental sides to develop robust technologies based on molecular polaritons. In particular, the processes of controlling energy transduction by polaritonics and quantum logic operations by polariton condensates hold great. Overall, this conference aims to address the challenges and prospects of the field of polaritonics and foster development of next generation optoelectronic and photonic materials. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.