Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 14, 2025

Sealable Femtoliter Chamber Arrays for Cell-free Biology
Published on: March 11, 2015
Temporal witnesses of non-classicality in a macroscopic biological system
Giuseppe Di Pietra1, Vlatko Vedral2, Chiara Marletto2
1Clarendon Laboratory, University of Oxford, Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3PU, UK. giuseppe.dipietra@physics.ox.ac.uk.
Abstract:
Exciton transfer along a bio-polymer is essential for many biological processes, for instance, light harvesting in photosynthetic biosystems. Here we apply a new witness of non-classicality to this phenomenon, to conclude that, if an exciton can mediate the coherent quantum evolution of a photon, then the exciton is non-classical. We then propose a general qubit model for the quantum transfer of an exciton along a bio-polymer chain, also discussing the effects of environmental decoherence. The generality of our results makes them ideal candidates to design new tests of quantum features in complex bio-molecules.
Related Concept Videos
Classification of Systems-I
Homogeneity dictates that if an input x(t) is multiplied by a constant c, the output y(t) is multiplied by the same constant. Mathematically, this is expressed as:
Characteristics of Life
Non-equilibrium in the Cell
Entropy within the Cell
Classification of Systems-II
The Wave Nature of Light

