Related papers: Clustered Geometries Exploiting Quantum Coherence …
Recent experiments have shown that highly efficient energy transfer can take place in organic nanocrystals at extremely low acceptor densities. This striking phenomenon has been ascribed to the formation of exciton polaritons thanks to the…
In the primary step of light-harvesting, the energy of a photon is captured in antenna chlorophyll as an exciton. Its efficient conversion to stored chemical potential occurs in the special pair reaction center, which has to be reached by…
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 assess how quantum-mechanical effects associated with high-frequency chromophore vibrations influence excitation energy transfer in biological light-harvesting complexes. We begin with a mixed quantum-classical theory that combines a…
We present an analytical model for Forster resonance energy transfer (FRET) between a donor and an acceptor placed in inhomogeneous and absorptive environment characterized by complex dielectric function, e.g., near a metal-dielectric…
Giant strides in ultrashort laser pulse technology have enabled real-time observation of dynamical processes in complex molecular systems. Specifically, the discovery of oscillatory transients in the two-dimensional electronic spectra of…
Metal Organic Frameworks (MOFs) are promising materials to help mitigate the effects of global warming by selectively absorbing $\text{CO}_{2}$ for direct capture. Accurate quantum chemistry simulations are a useful tool to help select and…
Recent observations of coherence in photosynthetic complexes have led to the question of whether quantum effects can occur in vivo, not under femtosecond laser pulses but in incoherent sunlight and at steady state, and, if so, whether the…
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…
Photosynthetic antenna complexes capture and concentrate solar radiation by transferring the excitation to the reaction center which stores energy from the photon in chemical bonds. This process occurs with near-perfect quantum efficiency.…
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…
Natural light-harvesting antenna complexes efficiently capture solar energy using chlorophyll, i.e., magnesium porphyrin pigments, embedded in a protein matrix. Inspired by this natural configuration, artificial clay-porphyrin antenna…
Coherent virtual absorption refers to time-limited storage of optical energy in lossless configurations due to excitation of a complex zero frequency through proper temporal engineering of the incident wave. Given the dynamics underlying…
It is thought that nature already exploits quantum mechanical properties to increase the efficiency of solar energy harvesting devices. So, the operation of these devices can be enhanced by clever design of a nanoscopic, quantum mechanical…
Following the calculation of optimal energy transfer in thermal environment in our first paper (Wu et al., New J. Phys., 2010, 12, 105012), full quantum dynamics and leading-order `classical' hopping kinetics are compared in the seven-site…
We provide physically intuitive mechanisms for the effect of noise on excitation energy transfer (EET) in networks. Using these mechanisms of dephasing-assisted transport (DAT) in a hybrid basis of both excitons and sites, we develop a…
The physical basis for observed long-lived electronic coherence in photosynthetic light-harvesting systems is identified using an analytically soluble model. Three physical features are found to be responsible for their long coherence…
Cooperative optical effects are enabled and controlled by interactions between molecular dipoles, meaning that their mutual orientation is of paramount importance to, for example, superabsorbing light-harvesting antennas. Here we show how…
Photochromic molecular structures constitute a unique platform for constructing molecular switches, sensors and memory devices. One of their most promising applications is as light-switchable electron acceptor or donor units. Here, we…
The use of energy conservation arguments is ubiquitous in understanding the process of high harmonic generation, yet a complete quantum optical description of exact photon number exchange remained elusive. Here, we solve this gap in…