Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Volume 106, Issue 41, Pages 17255-17260Publisher
NATL ACAD SCIENCES
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0908989106
Keywords
photosynthesis; electronic energy transfer; quantum dynamics
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Funding
- U. S. Department of Energy [DE-AC02-05CH11231, DE-AC03-76SF000098]
- Japan Society for the Promotion of Science
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The observation of long-lived electronic coherence in a photosynthetic pigment-protein complex, the Fenna-Matthews-Olson (FMO) complex, is suggestive that quantum coherence might play a significant role in achieving the remarkable efficiency of photosynthetic electronic energy transfer (EET), although the data were acquired at cryogenic temperature [Engel GS, et al. (2007) Evidence for wavelike energy transfer through quantum coherence in photosynthetic systems. Nature 446: 782-786]. In this paper, the spatial and temporal dynamics of EET through the FMO complex at physiological temperature are investigated theoretically. The numerical results reveal that quantum wave-like motion persists for several hundred femtoseconds even at physiological temperature, and suggest that the FMO complex may work as a rectifier for unidirectional energy flow from the peripheral light-harvesting antenna to the reaction center complex by taking advantage of quantum coherence and the energy landscape of pigments tuned by the protein scaffold. A potential role of quantum coherence is to overcome local energetic traps and aid efficient trapping of electronic energy by the pigments facing the reaction center complex.
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