Spectrokinetic characterization of photoactive yellow protein films for integrated optical applications

In this paper, the photocycle of the dried photoactive yellow protein film has been investigated in different humidity environments, in order to characterize its nonlinear optical properties for possible integrated optical applications. The light-induced spectral changes of the protein films were monitored by an optical multichannel analyser set-up, while the accompanying refractive index changes were measured with the optical waveguide lightmode spectroscopy method. To determine the number and kinetics of spectral intermediates in the photocycle, the absorption kinetic data were analysed by singular value decomposition and multiexponential fitting methods, whose results were used in a subsequent step of fitting a photocycle model to the data. The absorption signals of the films were found to be in strong correlation with the measured light-induced refractive index changes, whose size and kinetics imply that photoactive yellow protein may be a good alternative for utilization as an active nonlinear optical material in future integrated optical applications.