Environmentally Improved Coherent Light Harvesting

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 they 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.

Automated summary

This study demonstrates that enhancing the coupling strength between the system and the environment can amplify coherent efficiency enhancements, rather than suppress them. This result significantly expands the potential systems that could be used to demonstrate coherence-enhanced light harvesting and to incorporate coherent effects into artificial light-harvesting devices.