《Lessons_from_nature_about_solar_light_harvesting》.pdf

REVIEW ARTICLE PUBLISHED ONLINE: 23 SEPTEMBER 2011 |  DOI: 10.1038/NCHEM.1145 Lessons from nature about solar light harvesting 1 2,3 4 5 Gregory D. Scholes *, Graham R. Fleming , Alexandra Olaya-Castro and Rienk van Grondelle Solar fuel production often starts with the energy from light being absorbed by an assembly of molecules; this electronic exci- tation is subsequently transferred to a suitable acceptor. For example, in photosynthesis, antenna complexes capture sunlight and direct the energy to reaction centres that then carry out the associated chemistry. In this Review, we describe the principles learned from studies of various natural antenna complexes and suggest how to elucidate strategies for designing light-harvest- ing systems. We envisage that such systems will be used for solar fuel production, to direct and regulate excitation energy flow using molecular organizations that facilitate feedback and control, or to transfer excitons over long distances. Also described are the notable properties of light-harvesting chromophores, spatial-energetic landscapes, the roles of excitonic states and quantum coherence, as well as how antennas are regulated and photoprotected. unlight is the most abundant source of energy we have at our ultrafast dynamics of light-harvesting to relatively slow biological disposal. It plays the deciding role in net primary production on timescales. Later, energy is stored transiently as electro-chemical Searth1–3 by promoting high-energy chemical transformations potential, trans-membrane charge-separated states that live for that otherwi