Exciton-Diffusion Enhanced Energy Capture in an Integrated Nanoscale Platform

Harnessing
solar energy through biologically inspired
nanoscale
platforms presents a promising route for sustainable energy conversion.
Biohybrid systems take advantage of the design and performance of
natural systems while also enabling the optimized organization of
the protein components. Until now, such systems have usually been
made from components of the same species, limiting the range of properties
and interactions that can be generated. Here, we introduce a nanoscale
platform of biomolecular films containing cross-species antenna/reaction
center proteins. We demonstrated a long-range exciton diffusion of
∼200 nm through the antenna light-harvesting complex II (LHCII)
from green plants and quantified the underlying diffusivity at 3 ×
10–2 μm2 ns–1 using complementary simulations. The LHCII micropattern also induced
directional exciton diffusion as a crucial mechanism for enhanced
energy capture, yielding a ∼30% energy transfer efficiency
to the reaction center-light-harvesting complex 1 complex from purple
bacteria. This platform provides a proof-of-concept for an operation-ready,
hybrid energy harvesting system capable of spanning the entire visible
spectrum. The integration of diverse photosynthetic proteins into
biofilm platforms offers new potential for solar energy capture and
conversion.