Hamburg 2009 – scientific programme
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MO: Fachverband Molekülphysik
MO 2: Biomoleküle 1
MO 2.7: Talk
Monday, March 2, 2009, 15:30–15:45, VMP 6 HS-F
Design Criteria for Optimal Photosynthetic Energy Conversion — •Benjamin Fingerhut1, Wolfgang Zinth2, and Regina de Vivie-Riedle1 — 1Department Chemie and Biochemie, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, 81377 München, Germany — 2Institut für BioMolekulare Optik, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, 80538 München, Germany
Photochemical solar energy conversion is considered as an alternative of clean energy. For future light converting nano-machines photosynthetic reaction centers are used as prototypes optimized during evolution. We introduce a reaction scheme for global optimization and simulate the initial, ultrafast charge separation in photochemical energy conversion [1]. Multiple molecular charge carriers are involved in this process and are linked by Marcus-type electron transfer. In combination with evolutionary algorithms, we unravel the biological strategies for high quantum efficiency in photosynthetic reaction centers and extend these concepts to the design of artificial photochemical devices for energy conversion.
The generalization of the model to the detailed balance limit together with multi-objective optimization allows to deduce an upper limit for the efficiency of photochemical solar energy conversion and a direct comparison to semiconductor based systems.
[1] B. P. Fingerhut, W. Zinth and R. de Vivie-Riedle, Chem. Phys. Lett. 466, 209 (2008).