Nature does not rely on long-lived electronic quantum coherence for photosynthetic energy transfer.

ABSTRACT: 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 commonly rationalized in terms of excitons moving on a grid of biomolecular chromophores on typical timescales [Formula: see text]100 fs. Today's understanding of the energy transfer includes the fact that the excitons are delocalized over a few neighboring sites, but the role of quantum coherence is considered as irrelevant for the transfer dynamics because it typically decays within a few tens of femtoseconds. This orthodox picture of incoherent energy transfer between clusters of a few pigments sharing delocalized excitons has been challenged by ultrafast o

SUBMITTER: Duan HG 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5559008 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature