Minimization of Disorder as a Key Design Principle for Natural Sizes of Light Harvesting 2 Complexes
analogues with 6- and 12-fold symmetries. To ensure reliable and efficient all-atomistic molecular dynamics simulations, we combined a well established interpolation approach for the construction of the potential energy surface with a neural network machine learning approach. Outcomes of these calculations clarify that non-natural forms of LH2-type complexes have significantly larger quasistatic disorder than those for the natural one. In addition, non-natural systems have more disruptions of the hydrogen bonding, underscoring its crucial role for reducing the disorder. On the other hand, local environmental dynamics are relatively insensitive to the structural changes although there is moderate enhancement in the anharmonic or interatomic components for the synthetic ones. These findings based on all-atomistic simulations provide direct computational evidence that the structure and sizes of natural LH2 complexes are designed to minimize the energetic disorder. We analyze quantitative implications of these for the energy transferring capability of the LH2 complex.
Authors
- Young Min Rhee (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2392-3962)
- Seogjoo Jang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9975-5504)
- Kwang Hyun Cho (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1316-3063)
Institutions
- Queens College, CUNY (US)
- The Graduate Center, CUNY (US)
- Korea Institute for Advanced Study (KR)
- Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KR)
- City University of New York (US)
Publication Details
- Journal
- The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters
- Published
- 2026-06-09
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpclett.6c00794
- Primary Topic
- Photochromic and Fluorescence Chemistry
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00
Funders
- National Research Foundation of Korea
- Division of Chemistry
- Basic Energy Sciences
- Korea Institute for Advanced Study