The energy relaxation and kinetic evolution of transient spectra of bacteriochloro- phylls (BChls) in light-harvesting complex LH2 from Rb. sphaeroides 601 were investigated using femtosecond pump-probe technique. Upon 783 nm excitation, the energy at B800 BChls ex-periences an intramolecular redistribution with 0.35 ps time constant before transferring to B850 BChls. With tuning the excitation wavelength, the dynamical evolution of excited BChls was clearly observed, which indicates an obvious competition between the ground state bleaching and excited state absorption (ESA) of BChls involved and an isosbestic point near 818 nm, and also demonstrates that from the lower electronic excited state of B800 BChls to the higher exci-tonic state of B850 BChls is an efficient routine for energy transfer. The excitation energy in higher excitonic states of B850 BChls relaxes rapidly to the next lowest excitonic state by inter-conversion, delocalization to adjacent molecular, populating the lowest excitonic state and the change of molecular conformation.
GUO Lijun1,2, LIU Yuan3, LIU Weimin2, GUO Junhua1, XU Chunhe3 & QIAN Shixiong2 1. School of Physics and Information Optoelectronics, Henan University, Kaifeng 475001, China
Energy transfers in two kinds of peripheral light-harvesting complexes （LH2） of Rhodobacter sphaeroides （RS） 601 are studied by using femtosecond pump^probe spectroscopy with tunable laser wavelength at room temperature. These two complexes are native LH2 （RS601） and green carotenoid mutated LH2 （GM309）. The obtained results demonstrate that, compared with spheroidenes with ten conjugated double bonds in native RS601, carotenoid in GM309 containing neurosporenes with nine conjugated double bonds can lead to a reduction in energy transfer rate in the B800-to-B850 band and the disturbance in the energy relaxation processes within the excitonic B850 band.
