ABSTRACTIn this work we investigate theoretically the effects imposed by plasmon
excitations in spherical metallic nanoparticles (MNPs) on the rate of energy
transfer in peridinin-chlorophyll-protein (PCP) complex reconstituted with
both chlorophyll a (Chl a) and chlorophyll
b (Chl b). This light-harvesting
complex is unique since it features efficient energy transfer both from
higher-lying Chl b to lower-lying Chl a as
well as in the opposite, less energy-favorable direction. The results of
calculations show that the Förster energy transfer rate decreases with a
MNP-PCP distance changing from 2 to 144nm, while the energy
transfer from Chl a to Chl b remains less
efficient at all distances. We conclude that plasmon excitations allow for
controlling the energy transfer between Chls, as well as the excitation
distribution between two spectrally distinguishable Chls within the
reconstituted PCP complex.
Efficient energy transfer in light-harvesting systems: Quantum-classical comparison, flux network, and robustness analysis
