Ode to the Chlorosome
Round, lamellar, cylindrical, round
The millions of chlorophyll molecules align
All together they move in a single line
To form large structures all around
Friendship is made
They will not trade
They know they stun
United they are an underwater sun
A ray of light above the heads
Generates an ocean of illuminated threads
We wait and wait to watch it glow
It will transfer energy for years to go
High Resolution Image
About the Image
The central illuminated structure corresponds to a molecular image of the first few rows of an
atomistic model for the chlorosome antenna complex found in the green sulfur bacteria of
Chlorobaculum Tepidum . The background color gradient corresponds to the base 10 logarithm of the electric field enhancement, log10( κ), calculated on a grid orthogonal to the roll structure after it has been excited by a plane wave [1]. The radial pattern of illumination is favoring transfer to neighboring structures and ultimately to the reaction center where charge separation occurs. The other dark blue antenna structures have been added to recall that experimentally, the images of the antenna complex show a series of substructures of different size and shape.
[1] Stéphanie Valleau, Semion K. Saikin, Davood Ansari-Oghol-Beig, Masoud Rostami, Hossein Mosallaei, and Alán Aspuru-Guzik. “ Electromagnetic study of the chlorosome antenna complex of Chlorobium-tepidum” ACS Nano: 8, 3884 (2014)