Metallic Nanoparticles Coupled with Photosynthetic Complexes

Plasmon excitations in metallic nanoparticles provide an efficient way to manipulate electromagnetic fields at the nanoscale (Maier, 2004). While the interactions between plasmons and simple nanostructures such as organic dyes or semiconductor nanocrystals is relatively well described and understood, application of metallic nanoparticles to multipigment structures has started just recently (Carmeli, 2010; Govorov, 2008; Kim, 2011; Mackowski, 2008; Nieder, 2010). Light-harvesting complexes, or more generally, photosynthetic complexes, are quite appealing in this regard as they not only provide an interesting biomolecular system for studying plasmon effect on both the optical properties of pigments and the energy transfer between them, but also they could offer attractive potential application route in photovoltaics (Atwater & Polman, 2010; Mackowski, 2010).