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Strong light-matter interaction leads to the formation of hybrid polariton states and alters the photophysical dynamics of organic materials and biological systems without modifying their chemical structure. Here, we experimentally investigated a well-known photosynthetic protein, light harvesting 2 complexes (LH2) from purple bacteria under both strong and weak coupling with the light mode of a Fabry-Perot optical microcavity. Using femtosecond pump-probe spectroscopy, we analysed the polariton dynamics of the strongly coupled system. We observed a significant prolongation of the excited state lifetime compared with the bare exciton, which can be explained in terms of the exciton reservoir model. We also demonstrated cavity-mediated excitation transfer between different complexes even in case of weak effective light-mater interaction.
Wu, F.; Finkelstein-Shapiro, D.; Wang, M.; Rosenkampff, I.; Yartsev, A.; Pascher, T.; Nguyen-Phan, T. C.; Cogdell, R.; Börjesson, K.; Pullerits, T. Optical Cavity-Mediated Exciton Dynamics in Photosynthetic Light Harvesting 2 Complexes. Nat. Commun. 2022, 13, 6864.
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-34613-x.
Wu, F.; Nguyen-Phan, T. C.; Cogdell, R.; Pullerits, T. Efficient cavity-mediated energy transfer between photosynthetic light harvesting complexes from strong to weak coupling regime. arXiv2502.10144
Rosenkampff, I.; Pullerits, T. Microcavity-Enhanced Exciton Dynamics in Light-Harvesting Complexes: Insights from Redfield Theory. arXiv:250
