Visible-light absorption and transport of the resultant electronic excitations to a reaction centre through Förster resonance energy transfer^1,2,3 (FRET) are critical to the operation of biological light-harvesting systems⁴, and are used in various artificial systems made of synthetic dyes⁵, polymers⁶ or nanodots^7,8. The fundamental equations describing FRET are similar to those describing vibration-to-vibration (V–V) energy transfer⁹, and suggest that transport and localization of vibrational energy should, in principle, also be possible. Although it is known that vibrational excitation can promote reactions^{10,11,12,13,14,15,16}, transporting and concentrating vibrational energy has not yet been reported. We have recently demonstrated orientational isomerization enabled by vibrational energy pooling in a CO adsorbate layer on a NaCl(100) surface¹⁷. Here we build on that work to show that the isomerization reaction proceeds more efficiently with a thick ¹²C¹⁶O overlayer that absorbs more mid-infrared photons and transports the resultant vibrational excitations by V–V energy transfer to a ¹³C¹⁸O–NaCl interface. The vibrational energy density achieved at the interface is 30 times higher than that obtained with direct excitation of the interfacial CO. We anticipate that with careful system design, these concepts could be used to drive other chemical transformations, providing new approaches to condensed phase chemistry.

可见光吸收和通过 Förster 共振能量转移^1,2,3 (FRET) 将所得电子激发传输到反应中心对于生物光捕获系统⁴的运行至关重要，并用于各种人工系统合成染料⁵，聚合物⁶或纳米点^7,8。描述 FRET 的基本方程类似于描述振动到振动 (V-V) 能量传递的方程⁹，并且表明振动能量的传输和定位原则上也应该是可能的。虽然已知振动激发可以促进反应^{10,11,12,13,14,15,16}，传输和集中振动能量尚未报道。我们最近展示了通过在 NaCl(100) 表面¹⁷上的 CO 吸附层中的振动能量汇集实现的定向异构化。在这里，我们在这项工作的基础上展示了异构化反应更有效地进行，厚的¹² C ¹⁶ O 覆盖层吸收更多的中红外光子并通过 V-V 能量转移将产生的振动激发传输到¹³ C ¹⁸O-NaCl 界面。在界面处获得的振动能量密度比直接激发界面 CO 获得的能量密度高 30 倍。我们预计，通过仔细的系统设计，这些概念可用于驱动其他化学转化，为凝聚相化学提供新方法。