Developing de novo architectures of photosynthetic complexes for the control of photocurrent output from reaction centres.

在光合作用中，太阳能被叶绿素结合捕光（LH）天线复合物吸收（1），其将其作为激发能量引导到反应中心（RC），引发一系列电子转移反应，从而允许以化学形式储存能量。光合RC的量子效率为85- 98%，远远超过其人工竞争对手。因此，人们对将这些RC结合到生物混合装置中以产生电流非常感兴趣。最近，我们开发了稳健且低成本的技术，用于将光合复合物微纳米图案化到沉积在金、玻璃、硅或石墨烯基底上的自组装单层（SAM）上（2，3）。通过使用荧光寿命成像（FLIM），我们已经证明了这些制造的RC和LH复合物结构在微米距离尺度上转移激发能量的能力，远远超过自然界中所见的任何能量（4），并基于环境条件的操纵在高效率和低效率模式之间可逆地切换（2）

In photosynthesis, solar energy is absorbed by chlorophyll binding light-harvesting (LH) antenna complexes (1), which channel it as excitation energy towards the reaction centres (RCs), initiating a series of electron transfer reactions that allow storage of the energy in chemical form. Photosynthetic RCs operate with a quantum efficiency of 85-98%, far outstripping their artificial competitors. Thus, there is great interest in incorporating these RC's into bio-hybrid devices to generate electric current. Recently, we developed robust and low-cost techniques for micro- and nano-patterning of photosynthetic complexes onto self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) deposited on gold, glass, silicon or graphene substrates (2, 3). By using fluorescence lifetime imaging (FLIM), we have demonstrated the ability of these fabricated architectures of RCs and LH complexes to transfer excitation energy on the micron distance scale, far in excess of anything seen in nature (4), and to reversibly switch between high and low efficiency modes based on manipulation of the environmental conditions (2)