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Published on: November 6, 2018
Low-temperature single-molecule spectroscopy on photosynthetic pigment-protein complexes from purple bacteria
Silke Oellerich1, Jürgen Köhler
1Experimental Physics IV and Bayreuth Institute for Macromolecular Research, Universität Bayreuth, Universtitätsstrasse 30, Bayreuth, Germany.
Abstract:
The primary reactions of purple bacterial photosynthesis take place within two well characterized pigment-protein complexes, the core Reaction Center-Light Harvesting 1 (RC-LH1) complex and the more peripheral Light Harvesting 2 (LH2) complex. These antenna complexes serve to absorb incident solar radiation and to transfer it to the reaction-centers, where it is used to 'power' the photosynthetic redox reaction. This review provides an overview of how the character of the electronically excited states of these pigment-protein complexes are determined by quantum mechanics and how the respective spectral signatures can be observed by single-molecule spectroscopy.
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