Mirrors control chemical selectivity
phys.org | March 28, 2019
A chemical reaction transforms the molecules that make up matter. To influence chemical reactions, chemists typically act on the molecules themselves, rather than the space in which the reaction takes places. However, researchers at the University of Strasbourg have shown that chemical reactions can indeed be influenced simply by conducting them between two appropriately spaced mirrors, kept only micrometers apart, a vessel physicist call an "optical cavity".