Seminar Lecture of the Dept. of Applied Physics
Wednesday, June 16 at 11:30
Location: The seminar hall (room number 109) of the Institue of Earth Sciences
"Quantum-Classical Control of Energy Transfer in Biological Light-Harvesting Systems and in Bio-Inspired Nano-devices "
Speaker: Mr. Yuval Kolodny
Affiliation: Prof. Yossi Paltiel, Applied Physics Department, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel
Photosynthesis is one of the fundamental processes of life. Its first step is light-harvesting: absorbing sunlight and transferring its energy to reaction centers, where it is converted to chemical energy. Sophisticated light-harvesting protein complexes have evolved to harvest light with extraordinary efficiency. The underlying physical mechanism of these complexes are still not fully understood, and the intriguing option that the mechanism involves quantum coherence, has been the recent focus of the growing field of quantum biology. In this talk I will share several approaches to study the control of energy transfer in these systems at the nanoscale: from organisms at their natural habitats, through bacteria grown under controlled conditions in the lab, to bio-mimicry using hybrid nano-structures of quantum dots and organic linkers.
