Coles, D., Flatten, L.C., Sydney, T. et al. (8 more authors) (2017) A Nanophotonic Structure Containing Living Photosynthetic Bacteria. Small, 13 (38). 1701777. ISSN 1613-6810
Abstract
Photosynthetic organisms rely on a series of self-assembled nanostructures with tuned electronic energy levels in order to transport energy from where it is collected by photon absorption, to reaction centers where the energy is used to drive chemical reactions. In the photosynthetic bacteria Chlorobaculum tepidum, a member of the green sulfur bacteria family, light is absorbed by large antenna complexes called chlorosomes to create an exciton. The exciton is transferred to a protein baseplate attached to the chlorosome, before migrating through the Fenna-Matthews-Olson complex to the reaction center. Here, it is shown that by placing living Chlorobaculum tepidum bacteria within a photonic microcavity, the strong exciton-photon coupling regime between a confined cavity mode and exciton states of the chlorosome can be accessed, whereby a coherent exchange of energy between the bacteria and cavity mode results in the formation of polariton states. The polaritons have energy distinct from that of the exciton which can be tuned by modifying the energy of the optical modes of the microcavity. It is believed that this is the first demonstration of the modification of energy levels within living biological systems using a photonic structure.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2017 The Authors. Published by WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Keywords: | biophotonics; microcavities; photosynthetic bacteria; polaritons; strong coupling |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Science (Sheffield) > Department of Physics and Astronomy (Sheffield) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number ENGINEERING AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE RESEARCH COUNCIL (EPSRC) EP/M025330/1 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 24 Aug 2017 13:45 |
Last Modified: | 12 Feb 2019 11:17 |
Published Version: | https://doi.org/10.1002/smll.201701777 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Wiley |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1002/smll.201701777 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:120544 |