Light-gathering macromolecules in plant cells transfer energy by taking advantage of molecular vibrations whose physical descriptions have no equivalents in classical physics, according to the first unambiguous theoretical evidence of quantum effects in photosynthesis, published in the journal Nature Communications (open access).
The majority of light-gathering macromolecules are composed of chromophores (responsible for the color of molecules) attached to proteins, which carry out the first step of photosynthesis, capturing sunlight and transferring the associated energy highly efficiently.
Previous experiments have suggested that energy is transferred in a wave-like manner, exploiting quantum phenomena, but crucially, a non-classical (quantum) explanation could not be conclusively proved because the phenomena identified could equally be described using classical physics.
Non-classicality of the molecular vibrations assisting exciton energy transfer at room temperature
- Nature Communications
- 5,
- Article number:
- 3012
- doi:10.1038/ncomms4012
- Received
- Accepted
- Published
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