Efficiency of energy transfer in a light-harvesting system under quantum coherence

Efficient estimation of energy transfer efficiency in light-harvesting complexes.

The fundamental physical mechanisms of energy transfer in photosynthetic complexes is not yet fully understood. In particular, the degree of efficiency or sensitivity of these systems for energy transfer is not known given their realistic with surrounding photonic and phononic environments. One major problem in studying light-harvesting complexes has been the lack of an efficient method for sim...

Quantum Coherence in Photosynthetic Light Harvesting

Recent two-dimensional (2D) electronic spectroscopic experiments revealed that electronic energy transfer in photosynthetic light harvesting involves long-lived quantum coherence among electronic excitations of pigments. These findings have led to the suggestion that quantum coherence might play a role in achieving the remarkable quantum efficiency of photosynthetic light harvesting. Further, t...

Optimal Energy Transfer in Light-Harvesting Systems.

Photosynthesis is one of the most essential biological processes in which specialized pigment-protein complexes absorb solar photons, and with a remarkably high efficiency, guide the photo-induced excitation energy toward the reaction center to subsequently trigger its conversion to chemical energy. In this work, we review the principles of optimal energy transfer in various natural and artific...

Microscopic quantum coherence in a photosynthetic-light-harvesting antenna.

We briefly review the coherent quantum beats observed in recent two-dimensional electronic spectroscopy experiments in a photosynthetic-light-harvesting antenna. We emphasize that the decay of the quantum beats in these experiments is limited by ensemble averaging. The in vivo dynamics of energy transport depends upon the local fluctuations of a single photosynthetic complex during the energy t...

Energy Transfer and Photosynthetic Light Harvesting