Coherent and controllable enhancement of light-harvesting efficiency

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that coherence can enhance light-harvesting efficiency and introduces a controllable model system to experimentally verify this effect, enabling potential advancements in energy transfer technologies.

Contribution

The study presents a novel model system where initial coherence is controllable via incident light, showing that coherence can significantly improve light-harvesting efficiency.

Findings

Coherence enhances light-harvesting efficiency in the model system.

Controlled excitation demonstrates the ability to turn coherence effects on and off.

Potential for experimental verification of coherence-enhanced energy transfer.

Abstract

Spectroscopic experiments have identified long-lived coherences in several light-harvesting systems, suggesting that coherent effects may be relevant to their performance. However, there is limited experimental evidence of coherence enhancing light-harvesting efficiency, largely due to the difficulty of turning coherences on and off to create an experimental control. Here, we show that coherence can indeed enhance light harvesting, and that this effect can be controlled. We construct a model system in which initial coherence can be controlled using the incident light, and which is significantly more efficient under coherent, rather than incoherent, excitation. Our proposal would allow for the first unambiguous demonstration of light harvesting enhanced by intermolecular coherence, as well as demonstrate the potential for coherent control of excitonic energy transfer.