Functional Subsystems and Quantum Redundancy in Photosynthetic Light Harvesting

Abstract

The Fenna-Matthews-Olson (FMO) antennae complex, responsible for light harvesting in green sulfur bacteria, consists of three monomers, each with seven chromophores. Here we show that multiple subsystems of the seven chromophores can transfer energy from either chromophore 1 or 6 to the reaction center with an efficiency matching or in many cases exceeding that of the full seven chromophore system. In the FMO complex these functional subsystems support multiple quantum pathways for efficient energy transfer that provide a built-in quantum redundancy. There are many instances of redundancy in nature, providing reliability and protection, and in photosynthetic light harvesting this quantum redundancy provides protection against the temporary or permanent loss of one or more chromophores. The complete characterization of functional subsystems within the FMO complex offers a detailed map of the energy flow within the FMO complex, which has potential applications to the design of more efficient photovoltaic devices.

References in corpus (2)

• Efficient energy transfer in light-harvesting systems, I: optimal temperature, reorganization energy, and spatial-temporal correlations
• Modified-scaled hierarchical equation of motion approach for the study of quantum coherence in photosynthetic complexes

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• Effect of Strong Electron Correlation on the Efficiency of Photosynthetic Light Harvesting
• Population and Coherence Dynamics in Light Harvesting Complex II (LH2)
• Robust and fragile quantum effects in the transfer kinetics of delocalized excitons between B850 units of LH2 complexes
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