More money has been wasted on laser chemistry than any other field of optics. While it is possible, on the single molecule level, to perform very clever experi

More money has been wasted on laser chemistry than any other field of optics. While it is possible, on the single molecule level, to perform very clever experiments, scaling to any useful result has proven impossible for two main reasons. First, at the densities where there can be any non-microscopic yield of a laser chemical process, collisions immediately scramble and ruin intricate quantum state preparation. Secondly, you need at least one photon per reaction—- and even in the age of semiconductor diode laser driven devices, a mole of photons is among the most expensive reagents a chemist can employ.