Ultrafast processes in photosynthetic light-harvesting

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...

Quantum entanglement in photosynthetic light-harvesting complexes

Light-harvesting components of photosynthetic organisms are complex, coupled, many-body quantum systems, in which electronic coherence has recently been shown to survive for relatively long timescales, despite the decohering effects of their environments. Here, we analyse entanglement in multichromophoric light-harvesting complexes, and establish methods for quantification of entanglement by de...

Superradiance Transition in Photosynthetic Light-Harvesting Complexes

G.L. Celardo, F. Borgonovi, M. Merkli, V.I. Tsifrinovich, and G.P. Berman Dipartimento di Matematica e Fisica and Interdisciplinary Laboratories for Advanced Materials Physics, Università Cattolica, via Musei 41, 25121 Brescia, Italy and Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Sezione di Pavia, via Bassi 6, I-27100, Pavia, Italy Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Memorial University of Ne...

Photosynthetic light harvesting: excitons and coherence.

Photosynthesis begins with light harvesting, where specialized pigment-protein complexes transform sunlight into electronic excitations delivered to reaction centres to initiate charge separation. There is evidence that quantum coherence between electronic excited states plays a role in energy transfer. In this review, we discuss how quantum coherence manifests in photosynthetic light harvestin...

Energy Transfer and Photosynthetic Light Harvesting