Time：16:00-17:30, Thursday, Sept. 14, 2023

Host: Prof. Hongfei Wang, PI of School of Science, Westlake University

Venue: E10-201, Yungu Campus, Westlake University

Prof. Yuxiang Weng,

 Professor, Director of Laboratory of SoftMatter Physics, Institute of Physics (IOPChinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).

E-mail: yxweng@iphy.ac.cn

Speaker：

Dr. Yuxiang Weng, Professor, Director of Laboratory of Soft Matter Physics,Institute of Physics (IOP), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). He graduated from the Department of Chemistry, East China Normal University (Shanghai) in 1985 and got a master degree in physical chemistry from the same department in 1988, then obtained a Ph.D. degree in laser physics from the Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy o Sciences in 1993. He continued his research career as a postdoctor in Prof. C.M. Che’s group in the Department of Chemistry, The university of Hong Kong (1994-1997), and in Prof. Tim Lian’s group in the Chemistry Department, Emory University (USA, 1997-1999). After that, he joined the Laboratory of Optical Physics, Institute of Physics, CAS as an associate professor (1999-2000), then as a full professor in 2000. His research interest is to develop ultrafast spectroscopic methods to investigate the energy and electron transfer processes in natural and artificial photosynthetic systems, photo-generated carrier and phonon-coupled plarons in photocatalytic semiconductors. Constructing temperature-jump ns time-resolved IR spectroscopy to study the protein dynamical structures at amide I spectral region. Using two-dimensional electronic spectroscopy to elucidate the multi-vibrational wavepacket during electronic excitation, and vibration-assisted coherent energy transfer in photosynthetic process.

Abstract:

Photosynthesis converts carbon dioxide into organic compounds using solar energy with the largest scale on the earth. Its primary process involves photon absorption, excited energy transfer (also quenching) and charge separation. In this primary process, quantum effects have been exploited by the Nature to optimize energy transfer paths as well switching between two states of light harvesting and photo-protection in high plants. In this talk, I will introduce a number of case studies in which our group explored quantum effects in photosynthetic antennas in high plants, alga and photosynthetic bacteria respectively. (1) A quantum switch in light-harvesting complex of photosystem II (LHCII) regulating the state transition between light-harvesting and photo-protection; (2) quantum phase synchronization via electronic-vibronic energy dissipation sustains long-lived coherence in marine alga antennas; (3) quantum-effect optimized vesicle size consisting light-harvesting antenna II (LH2) in photosynthetic bacteria as a balance in efficiency between light-harvesting and energy transfer. 

Contact:

School of Science,Li Huang, Email: huangli10@westlake.edu.cn