Nature has mastered the art of molecular self-assembly, evolving from a very limited number of building blocks an impressive diversity of photosynthetic light-harvesting complexes, which are highly versatile and efficient. In a first part, I will focus on dynamical properties of the light-harvesting complexes, modeled as open quantum systems. I will (1) propose a theory explaining the origins of long-lived coherences observed in their 2D electronic spectra, (2) show the influence of excitation conditions on the open dynamics and (3) present how to mimic natural excitation in the lab, i.e. how incoherent sunlight relates to coherent laser pulses.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) & Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART)