Regensburg 2007 – scientific programme

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CPP: Fachverband Chemische Physik und Polymerphysik

CPP 26: INTERNAL SYMPOSIUM Optical Spectroscopy I

CPP 26.2: Invited Talk

Thursday, March 29, 2007, 10:30–11:00, H40

Charge and Energy Transfer in Photosynthetic Systems - Some Principles of Photosynthetic Light Harvesting — •Villy Sundström — Department of Chemical Physics, Lund University, Box 124, S-221 00 Lund, Sweden

Photosynthesis is Nature's way of converting solar energy into energy rich molecules. The molecular machinery to achieve this consists of two coupled pigment-protein systems - a light-harvesting antenna to collect the light and a photochemical reaction center to convert short-lived excited state energy of antenna pigments into more stable charge separated states. With the need to find artificial systems for solar energy conversion it is interesting to find out what are the structures and processes by which photosynthesis fulfils its task. Light harvesting and charge transfer has been studied in many different antennas and reaction centers. In this lecture a few examples will be given with the aim to highlight key concepts and some principles of operation.