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Updated: May 23, 2026

Isolating and Incorporating Light-Harvesting Antennas from Diatom Cyclotella Meneghiniana in Liposomes with Thylakoid Lipids
Published on: August 28, 2018
Design principles of photosynthetic light-harvesting
Graham R Fleming1, Gabriela S Schlau-Cohen, Kapil Amarnath
1Department of Chemistry, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA. grfleming@lbl.gov
Abstract:
Photosynthetic organisms are capable of harvesting solar energy with near unity quantum efficiency. Even more impressively, this efficiency can be regulated in response to the demands of photosynthetic reactions and the fluctuating light-levels of natural environments. We discuss the distinctive design principles through which photosynthetic light-harvesting functions. These emergent properties of photosynthesis appear both within individual pigment-protein complexes and in how these complexes integrate to produce a functional, regulated apparatus that drives downstream photochemistry. One important property is how the strong interactions and resultant quantum coherence, produced by the dense packing of photosynthetic pigments, provide a tool to optimize for ultrafast, directed energy transfer. We also describe how excess energy is quenched to prevent photodamage under high-light conditions, which we investigate through theory and experiment. We conclude with comments on the potential of using these features to improve solar energy devices.
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