2009/01/31 by Pulak Kumar Ghosh, Anatoly Yu. Smirnov, Franco Nori · 29 citations
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #ATP Synthase and ATPases Research #Artificial photosynthesis #Electron #Electron transfer #Molecular Junctions and Nanostructures #Photosynthetic reaction centre #Proton #Proton transport #Quantum yield #Range (aeronautics) #Spectroscopy and Quantum Chemical Studies #Triad (sociology) #Yield (engineering) #physics.bio-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1063/1.3170939
published in The Journal of Chemical Physics 131(3), 035102 (American Institute of Physics) · 14 pages, two columns format with inserted figures in the text
openalex publication_date 2009/07/17 · arxiv created 2009/12/04 · arxiv updated 2015/05/12 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We study a model of a light-induced proton pump in artificial reaction centers. The model contains a molecular triad with four electron states (i.e., one donor state, two photosensitive group states, and one acceptor state) as well as a molecular shuttle having one electron and one proton-binding sites. The shuttle diffuses between the sides of the membrane and translocates protons energetically uphill: from the negative side to the positive side of the membrane, harnessing for this purpose the energy of the electron-charge separation produced by light. Using the methods of quantum transport theory we calculate the range of light intensity and transmembrane potentials that maximize both the light-induced proton current and the energy transduction efficiency. We also study the effect of temperature on proton pumping. The light-induced proton pump in our model gives a quantum yield of proton translocation of about 55%. Thus, our results explain previous experiments on these artificial photosynthetic reaction centers.