U.S.-Korea Cooperative Research: Femtosecond Nonlinear Spectroscopy of Photosynthetic Light Harvesting

小行星9723840 该奖项支持芝加哥大学的Graham Fleming博士和韩国大学的Minhaeng Cho博士之间为期两年的合作研究项目“光合光收集的飞秒非线性光谱学”。“该项目的目标是扩展当前的非线性光谱学理论，如光子回波，以包括分子动力学的影响。 三脉冲回波峰移方法将在理论上进行研究，并在实验上应用于细菌和植物系统，以研究：1）电子离域程度，2）能量转移机制，以及3）生色团与蛋白质环境的耦合如何影响电子耦合。 弗莱明博士和赵博士之间的合作将使非线性光谱应用于光合光捕获的实验和理论研究相结合。 Fleming博士的实验室有能力生成关于细菌和植物天线光合系统的实验数据，而Cho博士有理论专长来开发理论形式和计算机代码来模拟这些数据。 这项研究是及时的，因为在光合系统的结构生物学和非线性光谱技术的快速发展。 预计这项研究将导致更好地了解光合作用过程，并将形成应用非线性光谱作为探针的广泛的化学和生物动力学的基础。 ***

9723840 Fleming This award supports a two-year collaborative research project between Dr. Graham Fleming of the University of Chicago and Dr. Minhaeng Cho of Korea University on "Femtosecond Nonlinear Spectroscopy of Photosynthetic Light Harvesting." The goal of the project is to extend current theories of nonlinear spectroscopy, such as the photon echo, to include the influence of molecular dynamics. The three pulse echo peak shift method will be studied theoretically and applied experimentally to bacterial and plant systems to investigate: 1) degree of electronic delocalization, 2) energy transfer mechanisms, and 3) how the couplings of chromaphores to the protein environment influence electronic coupling. The collaboration between Dr. Fleming and Dr. Cho will enable a combined experimental and theoretical study of nonlinear spectroscopy applied to photosynthetic light harvesting. Dr. Fleming's laboratory has the capability of generating experimental data on the bacterial and plant antenna photosynthetic systems, while Dr. Cho has the theoretical expertise to develop the theoretical formalisms and computer codes to model these data. The study is timely because of the rapid advances in the structural biology of photosynthetic systems and in the techniques of nonlinear spectroscopy. It is expected that this study will result in a better understanding of the photosynthetic process and will form the basis for applying nonlinear spectroscopy as a probe of a wide range of chemical and biological dynamics. ***