Optical Quantum Control of the Electron Transfer Reactions in Protein Flavodoxin

Abstract

The optical quantum control has been successfully applied in modulating biological processes such as energy transfer and bond isomerization. Among the reactions in realizing biological functions, the electron transfer (ET) process is fundamental; hence, the quantum control over such an ET reaction is of far-reaching significance. Here, we realized optical quantum control over ultrafast ET processes in a protein, flavodoxin, by applying various chirped excitation pulses. We observed the wavepacket dynamics within a dephasing time of less than 1 ps. Within this time window, we found that the ultrafast photoinduced ET reaction can be controlled by different chirped excitations with a rate change by a factor of about 2. Furthermore, the control effect is propagated into the subsequent ultrafast back ET reaction, showing a variation of the BET dynamics with different excitation chirps. The underlying mechanism is the initial wavepacket dynamics; the differently prepared wavepackets with chirped excitation evolve along various pathways, resulting in the changes of ET rates. The successful demonstration of optical quantum control of ultrafast biological ET is significant and opens a new avenue to explore the quantum control of real biological ET reactions.