Relation between structure and functionality in photosynthetic antenna complex of green sulfur bacteria: efficiency under natural sunlight pumping

TL;DR

This study uses large-scale simulations to analyze how the structure of green sulfur bacteria's photosynthetic antennae affects their efficiency under natural sunlight, revealing the importance of dipole orientation for optimal light harvesting.

Contribution

It provides a detailed modeling of exciton energy transfer in large-scale natural-like antenna complexes, highlighting the impact of dipole orientation on efficiency.

Findings

Efficiency reaches about 80% under natural sunlight conditions.

Natural dipole orientations yield higher efficiency than randomized or parallel configurations.

Structural and dipole orientation significantly influence light-harvesting performance.

Abstract

Large-scale simulations of light-matter interaction in natural photosynthetic antenna complexes of the Chlorobium Tepidum green sulfur bacteria (GSB) containing more than one hundred thousand chlorophyll molecules, comparable with natural size, have been performed. Here we have modeled the entire process of the exciton energy transfer, from sunlight absorption to exciton trapping in the reaction centers (RCs) in presence of a thermal bath. The energy transfer has been analyzed using the radiative non-Hermitian Hamiltonian and solving the rate equations for the populations. Sunlight pumping has been modeled as black-body radiation with an attenuation factor that takes the Sun-Earth distance into account. Cylindrical structures typical of GSB antenna complexes, and the dimeric baseplate comparable to natural size have been considered. Our analysis shows that under natural sunlight, in photosynthetic antennae of GSB the number of excitations reaching the RC per unit time matches the RC closure rate and the internal efficiency shows values close to 80%. We also considered cylindrical structures where the orientation of the dipoles does not reflect the natural one. Specifically, we vary continuously the angle of the transition dipole with respect to the cylinder main axis, focusing on the case where all dipoles are parallel to the cylinder axis. We also consider the important case where the dipoles are randomly oriented. In all cases the light-harvesting efficiency is lower than in the natural structure, showing the high sensitivity of light harvesting to the specific orientation of the dipole moments. Our results allow for a better understanding of the relationship between structure and functionality in photosynthetic antennae of GSB and could drive the design of efficient light-harvesting devices.