Related papers: Does coherence enhance transport in photosynthesis…
Photosynthesis is an important and complex physical process in nature, whose comprehensive understanding would have many relevant industrial applications, for instance in the field of energy production. In this paper we propose a quantum…
During the first steps of photosynthesis, the energy of impinging solar photons is transformed into electronic excitation energy of the light-harvesting biomolecular complexes. The subsequent energy transfer to the reaction center is…
We revisit critically the recent claims, inspired by quantum optics and quantum information, that there is entanglement in the biological pigment protein complexes, and that it is responsible for the high transport efficiency. While…
The striking efficiency of energy transfer in natural photosynthetic systems and the recent evidence of long-lived quantum coherence in biological light harvesting complexes has triggered much excitement, due to the evocative possibility…
We study how much the efficiency of a solar cell as a quantum heat engine could be enhanced by quantum coherence. In contrast to the conventional approach that a quantum heat engine is in thermal equilibrium with both hot and cold…
Photosynthetic organisms use networks of chromophores to absorb sunlight and deliver the energy to reaction centres, where charge separation triggers a cascade of chemical steps to store the energy. We present a detailed model of the…
Recently, several works have analysed the efficiency of photosynthetic complexes in a transient scenario and how that efficiency is affected by environmental noise. Here, following a quantum master equation approach, we study the energy and…
Efficient devices for light harvesting and photon sensing are fundamental building blocks of basic energy science and many essential technologies. Recent efforts have turned to biomimicry to design the next generation of light-capturing…
We propose a dynamic mechanism for the reversible regulation of photosynthesis in varying light environments. We employ a three-level quantum model to take into account the correlations between charge donors and charge acceptors immediately…
Long-lived exciton coherences have been recently observed in photosynthetic complexes via ultrafast spectroscopy, opening exciting possibilities for the study and design of coherent exciton transport. Yet, ambiguity in the spectroscopic…
The possibility to exploit quantum coherence to strongly enhance the efficiency of charge transport in solid state devices working at ambient conditions would pave the way to disruptive technological applications. In this work, we tackle…
Natural and artificial light harvesting systems often operate in a regime where the flux of photons is relatively low. Besides absorbing as many photons as possible it is therefore paramount to prevent excitons from annihilation via photon…
Transport phenomena on a quantum scale appear in a variety of systems, ranging from photosynthetic complexes to engineered quantum devices. It has been predicted that the efficiency of quantum transport can be enhanced through dynamic…
In this review, we present and discussed the main trends in photovoltaics with emphasize on the conversion efficiency limits. The theoretical limits of various photovoltaics device concepts are presented and analyzed using a flexible…
A variety of open quantum networks are currently under intense examination to model energy transport in photosynthetic systems. Here we study the coherent transfer of a quantum excitation over a network incoherently coupled with a…
Why do plants reflect in the green and have a 'red edge' in the red, and should extrasolar photosynthesis be the same? We provide: 1) a brief review of how photosynthesis works; 2) an overview of the diversity of photosynthetic organisms,…
The subtle and fundamental issue of indistinguishability and interference between independent pathways to the same target state is examined in the context of coherent control of atomic and molecular processes, with emphasis placed on…
We study the light absorption and energy transferring in a donor-acceptor system with a bionic structure. In the optimal case with uniform couplings, it is found that the quantum dynamics of this seemingly complicated system is reduced as a…
During the long course of evolution, nature has learnt how to exploit quantum effects. In fact, recent experiments reveal the existence of quantum processes whose coherence extends over unexpectedly long time and space ranges. In…
A generic and intuitive model for coherent energy transport in multiple minima systems coupled to a quantum mechanical bath is shown. Using a simple spin-boson system, we illustrate how a generic donor-acceptor system can be brought into…