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Donatas Zigmantas. Portrait.

Donatas Zigmantas

Professor

Donatas Zigmantas. Portrait.

Direct observation of the (forbidden) S-1 state in carotenoids

Author

  • Tomas Polivka
  • Jennifer Herek
  • Donatas Zigmantas
  • Hans-Erik Åkerlund
  • Villy Sundström

Summary, in English

Carotenoids are involved in a variety of biological functions, yet the underlying mechanisms are poorly understood, in part because of the long-standing difficulty in assigning the location of the first excited (S-1) state. Here, we present a method for determining the energy of the forbidden S-1 state, on the basis of ultrafast spectroscopy of the short lived level. Femtosecond transient absorption spectra and kinetics of the S-1 --> S-2 transition revealed the location of the intermediate level in two carotenoid species involved in the xanthophyll cycle, zeaxanthin and violaxanthin, and yielded surprising implications regarding the mechanism of photoregulation in photosynthesis.

Department/s

  • Chemical Physics
  • Biochemistry and Structural Biology

Publishing year

1999

Language

English

Pages

4914-4917

Publication/Series

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Volume

96

Issue

9

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

National Academy of Sciences

Topic

  • Biological Sciences
  • Atom and Molecular Physics and Optics

Keywords

  • dependence
  • photophysics
  • fluorescence
  • spectroscopy
  • energy
  • photosynthesis
  • spheroidene
  • dissipation
  • xanthophyll cycle
  • internal-conversion rate

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 1091-6490