Computational modelling of photosynthetic excitons coupled to a microcavity

Sammanfattning: Cavity quantum electrodynamics (QED) is a theory that is used for describing the interaction between matter and cavity modes. Not until relatively recently, cavity QED has been extended to the study of photosynthetic light-harvesting complexes (LHCs). Multiple phenomena unique to strongly cavity-coupled molecular systems have also been observed in LHCs in cavities. Of such phenomena, one is the formation of highly coherent states delocalized among thousands of molecules. These states have a partial light character, and are known as molecular polaritons. In this thesis, I explore the formation of polaritons by computationally modelling the light-harvesting complex 2 (LH2) of the purple bacterium Rhodopseudomonas acidophila in a microcavity. I also show the possibility of energy transfer between noninteracting LH2s via coupling to a cavity, providing a potentially new way in which photosynthetic energy transfer pathways could be artificially optimized.