English

Environmentally improved coherent light harvesting

Chemical Physics 2021-06-30 v2 Optics Quantum Physics

Abstract

Coherence-enhanced light harvesting has not been directly observed experimentally, despite theoretical evidence that coherence can significantly enhance light-harvesting performance. The main experimental obstacle has been the difficulty in isolating the effect of coherence in the presence of confounding variables. Recent proposals for externally controlling coherence by manipulating the light's degree of polarization showed that coherent efficiency enhancements would be possible, but were restricted to light-harvesting systems weakly coupled to their environment. Here, we show that increases in system-bath coupling strength can amplify coherent efficiency enhancements, rather than suppress them. This result dramatically broadens the range of systems that could be used to conclusively demonstrate coherence-enhanced light harvesting or to engineer coherent effects into artificial light-harvesting devices.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2012.11864,
  title  = {Environmentally improved coherent light harvesting},
  author = {Stefano Tomasi and Dominic M. Rouse and Erik M. Gauger and Brendon W. Lovett and Ivan Kassal},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2012.11864},
  year   = {2021}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-23T21:11:26.418Z