The stranger the quantum-mechanical effects that can occur

 The stronger the interaction becomes, the stranger the quantum-mechanical effects that can occur. If the interaction becomes strong enough, it may be possible to create photons out of the vacuum, or to make chemical reactions proceed in ways that are otherwise impossible.

"It is fascinating that, in this coupling regime, vacuum is not empty. Instead, it contains photons with wavelengths determined by the molecular vibrations. Moreover, these photons are extremely confined and are shared by a minute number of molecules," said Professor Luis Martin-Moreno at the computer science engineer salary Nanociencia y Materiales de Aragón (INMA) in Spain, another author of the paper.

"Normally, we think of vacuum as basically nothing, but it turns out this vacuum fluctuation always exists," Oh said. "This is an important step to actually harness this so-called zero energy fluctuation to do something useful."