Quantum Excitation Transfer in an Artificial Photosynthetic Light-Harvesting System

Abstract

We analytically derive transfer probabilities and efficiencies for an artificial light-harvesting photosynthetic system, which consists of a ring coupled to a central acceptor. For an incident photon pair, we find near-perfect single excitation transfer efficiency with negligible double excitation transfer in the weak coupling regime. In the strong coupling regime, single excitation transfer efficiency was greater than 90%, while the double excitation efficiency was approximately 50%. We have found that the three main factors which determine high transfer efficiencies are large acceptor probabilities, long acceptor decay times, and strong photon-ring coupling. A possible implementation of the theoretical framework to bio-inspired solar energy devices is also discussed.