Strategy of ring-shaped aggregates in excitation energy transfer for removing disorder-induced shielding

Abstract

Peripheral light harvesting complex (LH2), which is found in photosynthetic antenna systems of purple photosynthetic bacteria, has important functions in the photosynthetic process, such as harvesting sunlight and transferring its energy to the photosynthetic reaction center. The key component in excitation energy transfer (EET) between LH2s is B850, which is a characteristic ring-shaped aggregate of pigments usually formed by 18 or 16 bacteriochlorophylls in LH2. We theoretically study the strategy of the ring-shaped aggregate structure, which maximizes EET efficiency, by using the standard Frenkel exciton model and the self-consistent calculation method for the Markovian quantum master equation and Maxwell equation. As a result, we have revealed a simple but ingenious strategy of the ring-shaped aggregate structure. The combination of three key properties of the ring unit system maximizes the EET efficiency, namely the large dipole moment of aggregates causes the basic improvement of EET efficiency, and the isotropic nature and the large occupying area are critically effective to remove the disorder-induced shielding that inhibits EET in the presence of the randomness of orientation and alignment of carriers of excitation energy.