Strong Coupling to Circularly Polarized Photons: Toward Cavity-Induced Enantioselectivity

The development of new methodologies for the selective synthesis of individual enantiomers is still one of the major challenges in synthetic chemistry. Many biomolecules, and also many pharmaceutical compounds, are indeed chiral. While the use of chiral reactants or catalysts has led to substantial progress in the field of asymmetric synthesis, a systematic approach applicable to general reactions has still not been proposed. In this work, we demonstrate that strong coupling to circularly polarized fields can induce asymmetry in otherwise nonselective reactions. Specifically, we show that the field induces stereoselectivity in the early stages of chemical reactions by selecting an energetically preferred direction of approach for the reagents. Although the effects observed thus far are too small to significantly drive asymmetric synthesis, our results provide a proof of principle for field-induced stereoselective mechanisms. These findings lay the groundwork for future research.