Optical Spectroscopy of Individual Light-Harvesting Complexes

Abstract

The primary reactions of purple bacterial photosynthesis take place within two well characterized pigment- protein complexes, the core reaction center-light-harvesting 1 (RC-LH1) complex and the more peripheral light-harvesting 2 (LH2) complexes. These antenna complexes serve to absorb incident solar radiation and to transfer it to the RCs, where it is used to ‘power’ the photosynthetic redox reaction. This review describes how the use of single-molecule spectroscopy has contributed to a more detailed understanding of the molecular mechanisms involved in the energy transfer processes. I.