Journal
NANO LETTERS
Volume 10, Issue 7, Pages 2640-2648Publisher
AMER CHEMICAL SOC
DOI: 10.1021/nl1013772
Keywords
Quantum dot; bacteriorhodopsin; FRET; hybrid material; photovoltaic
Categories
Funding
- French National Research Agency (ANR) [ANR-08-BLAN-0185-01]
- Science Foundation of Ireland (SFI)
- SFI [07/IN 1/B1862]
- Basque Industria, Merkataraza eta Turismo Saila
- Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion, Spain [CSD2006-53]
- RFBR [09-04-00650]
- IRCSET scholarship under the Embark Initiative, Ireland
- EU
- Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR) [ANR-08-BLAN-0185] Funding Source: Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR)
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Purple membrane (PM) from bacteria Halobactrium salinarum contains a photochromic protein bacteriorhodopsin (bR) arranged in a 2D hexagonal nanocrystalline lattice (Figure) Absorption of light by the protein-bound chromophore retinal results in pumping the protons through the PM creating an electrochemical gradient which is then used by the ATPases to energize the cellular processes Energy conversion, photochromism, and photoelectrism are the inherent effects which are employed in many bR technical applications 2 3 bR, along with the other photosensitive proteins, is not able to deal with the excess energy of photons in UV and blue spectral region and utilizes less than 0 5% of the energy from the available incident solar light for its biological function (4) Here, we proceed with optimization of bR functions through the engineering of a nanoconverter of solar energy based on semiconductor quantum dots (QDs) tagged with the PM These nanoconverters are able to harvest light from deep-UV to the visible region and to transfer this additionally collected energy to bR via Forster resonance energy transfer (FRET) We show that specific nanobio-optical and spatial coupling of QDs (donor) and bR retinal (acceptor) provide a means to achieve FRET with efficiency approaching 100% We have finally demonstrated that the integration of QDs within PM significantly increases the efficiency of light-driven transmembrane proton pumping, which is the main bR biological function This new QD-PM hybrid material will have numerous optoelectronic, photonic, and photovoltaic applications based on its energy conversion, phocochromism, and photoclectrism properties
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available