Berlin 2014 – scientific programme

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AKE: Arbeitskreis Energie

AKE 15: Symposium on Rare Events: Optimal Solutions and Challenges - from Charge Transfer Reactions to Supervolcanoes

AKE 15.2: Invited Talk

Wednesday, March 19, 2014, 17:00–17:30, Audimax

The roles of energy-level and electronic-coupling fluctuations in the control of biomolecular and small-molecule charge transfer reactions — •Spiros Skourtis — Department of Physics, University of Cyprus, Nicosia, Cyprus

Charge transfer reactions are ubiquitous in biology and chemistry and are central to the molecular electronics and energy materials technologies. Charge transfer physics is very rich, with transport mechanisms ranging from tunnelling to thermally activated hopping. Due to the floppiness of biomolecules molecular conformational fluctuations play an active role in biological charge transport. I give a review of recent trends in the theory and simulation of molecular and biomolecular charge transfer rates, focusing on the role of electronic-coupling and energy-level fluctuations in proteins and DNA. Activated rare events of energy-level matching and of electronic-coupling enhancement are often the determinants of the charge transfer rates in these systems. I also discuss the possibility of driving structural fluctuations in small-molecule systems by external fields in order switch on and off charge transfer reactions.