The study of the mechanisms driving the energy transport through interacting systems plays a crucial role both to improve the process of transferring information across complex networks and to explain the high efficiency of the excitation transfer through a network of chromophores in photosynthetic systems. Theoretical models have predicted that noise can play a positive role in assisting energy transport (“Noise Assisted Transport”) and a maximum value of the transport efficiency is expected in correspondence of a particular value of noise.
At CNR-INO of Sesto Fiorentino, an optical simulator of complex networks, that mimics a network of chromophores in photosynthetic systems, has been realized, where the coherent propagation of excitons in a N-chromophores network is simulated by the propagation of photons in a network of N coupled optical cavities. The setup is entirely based on fiber-optic components at 1550 nm and the cavities are fiber Bragg grating (FBG) resonators.
This simulator has allowed the first experimental observation of the bell-like behavior of the transmission efficiency as a function of noise. This work points towards the possibility of designing optimized structures for transport assisted by noise that might also be used for future and more efficient solar energy technologies.
This result has been recently published in Physical Review Letters and the manuscript has been selected as “Editors’ Suggestion”.

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News by Viciani Silvia