ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2010
Long-lived quantum coherence in photosynthetic complexes at physiological temperature.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2010. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 153 papers.
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153 citing papers in PubMed, 1,040 citations in OpenAlex.
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- Quantum entanglement and coherence in plant signaling networks: a theoretical framework.Theory in biosciences = Theorie in den Biowissenschaften · 2026Review
- A Unified Model of Consciousness: Glycoprotein Patterns in Memory Processes and Quantum Entanglement.Current medicinal chemistry · 2026Article
- An Open-Quantum-Systems Theory of Quantum-Biological Communication Channels.IEEE transactions on molecular, biological, and multi-scale communications · 2026Article
- Quantum biophysics of photosynthesis: evolutionary tuning for robust performance under natural light.Frontiers in plant science · 2026Article
- Quantum Effects in Evolution: Terrestrial Fine-Tuning of Magnetic Parameters.Computational and structural biotechnology journal · 2026Article
- Dissipation Pathways in a Photosynthetic Complex.The journal of physical chemistry letters · 2025Article
- Consistent and Generalizable Effective Model Hamiltonian Framework for Studying Nonadiabatic Dynamics in the Condensed Phase.Journal of chemical theory and computation · 2025Review
- Comparing photosynthetic light harvesting of single photons and pseudothermal light under ultraweak illumination.Science advances · 2025Article
- Full microscopic simulations uncover persistent quantum effects in primary photosynthesis.Science advances · 2025Article
- Interplay between Mixed and Pure Exciton States Controls Singlet Fission in Rubrene Single Crystals.Journal of the American Chemical Society · 2025Article
- Theoretical Study on the Excitation Energy Transfer Dynamics in the Phycoerythrin PE555 Light-Harvesting Complex.ACS omega · 2024Article
- Intramolecular charge transfer and the function of vibronic excitons in photosynthetic light harvesting.Photosynthesis research · 2024Review
- Noise-Induced Quantum Synchronization and Entanglement in a Quantum Analogue of Huygens' Clock.The journal of physical chemistry letters · 2024Article
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8 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
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No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Photosynthetic antenna complexes capture and concentrate solar radiation by transferring the excitation to the reaction center that stores energy from the photon in chemical bonds. This process occurs with near-perfect quantum efficiency. Recent experiments at cryogenic temperatures have revealed that coherent energy transfer--a wave-like transfer mechanism--occurs in many photosynthetic pigment-protein complexes. Using the Fenna-Matthews-Olson antenna complex (FMO) as a model system, theoretical studies incorporating both incoherent and coherent transfer as well as thermal dephasing predict that environmentally assisted quantum transfer efficiency peaks near physiological temperature; these studies also show that this mechanism simultaneously improves the robustness of the energy transfer process. This theory requires long-lived quantum coherence at room temperature, which never has been observed in FMO. Here we present evidence that quantum coherence survives in FMO at physiological temperature for at least 300 fs, long enough to impact biological energy transport. These data prove that the wave-like energy transfer process discovered at 77 K is directly relevant to biological function. Microscopically, we attribute this long coherence lifetime to correlated motions within the protein matrix encapsulating the chromophores, and we find that the degree of protection afforded by the protein appears constant between 77 K and 277 K. The protein shapes the energy landscape and mediates an efficient energy transfer despite thermal fluctuations.
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