Editor's Summary
12 April 2007
Making photosynthesis tick
Photosynthesis provides the primary energy source for almost all life on Earth. One of its remarkable features is the efficiency with which energy is transferred within the light harvesting complexes comprising the photosynthetic apparatus. Suspicions that quantum trickery might be involved in the energy transfer processes at the core of photosynthesis are now confirmed by a new spectroscopic study. The study reveals electronic quantum beats characteristic of wavelike energy motion within the bacteriochlorophyll complex from the green sulphur bacterium Chlorobium tepidum. This wavelike characteristic of the energy transfer process can explain the extreme efficiency of photosynthesis, in that vast areas of phase space can be sampled effectively to find the most efficient path for energy transfer.
News and Views: Biophysics: Quantum path to photosynthesis
Knowing how plants and bacteria harvest light for photosynthesis so efficiently could provide a clean solution to mankind's energy requirements. The secret, it seems, may be the coherent application of quantum principles.
Roseanne J. Sension
doi:10.1038/446740a
Letter: Evidence for wavelike energy transfer through quantum coherence in photosynthetic systems
Gregory S. Engel,
Tessa R. Calhoun,
Elizabeth L. Read,
Tae-Kyu Ahn,
Tomá
Man
al,
Yuan-Chung Cheng,
Robert E. Blankenship
&
Graham R. Fleming
doi:10.1038/nature05678
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