Dr. Ivan Kassal: Nature and efficiency of photosynthetic light harvesting in sunlight

Nature and efficiency of photosynthetic light harvesting in sunlight

Dr. Ivan Kassal, The University of Queensland 

Plants and other photosynthetic organisms harvest light through complexes composed of many chlorophyll molecules supported by a protein backbone. Experimental studies that have recently found evidence of coherent, wavelike transport through such complexes caused considerable excitement because it was not expected that quantum coherence could survive for so long in biological systems at room temperature. I'll describe some of these effects with a special focus on the role played by optical coherence. Indeed, energy transport is quite different in experiments driven by coherent laser pulses than it is in natural sunlight, which is incoherent and stationary. I'll describe how to calculate the resulting steady state and how underlying quantum dynamics can influence energy transport efficiency even though steady-state transport may appear to be incoherent.