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Journal ArticleDOI

Coherent control of retinal isomerization in bacteriorhodopsin.

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TLDR
Modulating the phases and amplitudes of the spectral components in the photoexcitation pulse showed that the absolute quantity of 13-cis retinal formed upon excitation can be enhanced or suppressed by ±20% of the yield observed using a short transform-limited pulse having the same actinic energy.
Abstract
Optical control of the primary step of photoisomerization of the retinal molecule in bacteriorhodopsin from the all-trans to the 13-cis state was demonstrated under weak field conditions (where only 1 of 300 retinal molecules absorbs a photon during the excitation cycle) that are relevant to understanding biological processes. By modulating the phases and amplitudes of the spectral components in the photoexcitation pulse, we showed that the absolute quantity of 13-cis retinal formed upon excitation can be enhanced or suppressed by ±20% of the yield observed using a short transform-limited pulse having the same actinic energy. The shaped pulses were shown to be phase-sensitive at intensities too low to access different higher electronic states, and so these pulses apparently steer the isomerization through constructive and destructive interference effects, a mechanism supported by observed signatures of vibrational coherence. These results show that the wave properties of matter can be observed and even manipulated in a system as large and complex as a protein.

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Journal ArticleDOI

Microbial and animal rhodopsins: structures, functions, and molecular mechanisms.

TL;DR: Rhodopsins found in Eukaryotes, Bacteria, and Archaea consist of opsin apoproteins and a covalently linked retinal which is employed to absorb photons for energy conversion or the initiation of intra- or intercellular signaling.
Journal ArticleDOI

Control of quantum phenomena: past, present and future

TL;DR: Adaptive feedback control (AFC) as mentioned in this paper is a state-of-the-art technique for quantum control. But it is not suitable for the case of femtosecond laser sources.
Journal ArticleDOI

Conical intersection dynamics of the primary photoisomerization event in vision

TL;DR: Ultrafast optical spectroscopy with sub-20-fs time resolution and spectral coverage from the visible to the near-infrared allows us to follow the dynamics leading to the conical intersection in rhodopsin isomerization and finds excellent agreement between the experimental observations and molecular dynamics calculations that involve a true electronic state crossing.
Journal ArticleDOI

Femtosecond electron diffraction: heralding the era of atomically resolved dynamics

TL;DR: A detailed review of the technical progress that made this new level of acuity possible and a survey of the new insights gained from an atomic level perspective of structural dynamics can be found in this article.
References
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Book

Density Matrix Theory and Applications

Karl Blum
TL;DR: In this article, the role of Orientation and Alignment in molecular processes is discussed, as well as the efficiency of a measuring device. But the authors do not discuss the application of their theory in the field of quantum mechanics.
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Phytophthora Genome Sequences Uncover Evolutionary Origins and Mechanisms of Pathogenesis

Brett M. Tyler, +68 more
- 01 Sep 2006 - 
TL;DR: Comparison of the two species' genomes reveals a rapid expansion and diversification of many protein families associated with plant infection such as hydrolases, ABC transporters, protein toxins, proteinase inhibitors, and, in particular, a superfamily of 700 proteins with similarity to known oömycete avirulence genes.
Journal ArticleDOI

Quantum control of energy flow in light harvesting.

TL;DR: In this article, a feedback-optimized coherent control over the energy-flow pathways in the light-harvesting antenna complex LH2 from Rhodopseudomonas acidophila, a photosynthetic purple bacterium, is presented.
Journal ArticleDOI

Vibrationally coherent photochemistry in the femtosecond primary event of vision.

TL;DR: The observation of coherent vibrational motion of the photoproduct supports the idea that the primary step in vision is a vibrationally coherent process and that the high quantum yield of the cis-->trans isomerization in rhodopsin is a consequence of the extreme speed of the excited-state torsional motion.
Journal ArticleDOI

Real-time spectroscopy of transition states in bacteriorhodopsin during retinal isomerization.

TL;DR: The direct observation of nuclear motion in a complex biological system, the retinal chromophore of bacteriorhodopsin (bR568), as it undergoes the trans–cis photoisomerization that is fundamental to the vision process is reported.
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