Biomolecular photonic device consisting of Chl a/Chl b/phycoerythrin/phycocyanin hetero structure.

In living organisms the photosynthesis involves the absorption of light by the light-harvesting (LH) antenna complexes. By mimicking the photosynthesis process the artificial photonic device composed of bio-molecular hetero structure is developed. The proposed photonic device is composed of Chl a, Chl b, phycoerythrin and phycocyanin. To fabricate the highly ordered structure of biomolecules, the deposition of ordered Chl a/Chl b molecules onto solid substrates was done by the Langmuir-Blodgett (LB) technique, and the self-assembly technique was used for the deposition of phycocyanin molecule. To optimize the photocurrent generation, the photoelectric response characteristics of Chl a and Chl b LB films were measured according to the number of deposition layers, and effects of phycocyanin layer and various phycoerythrin concentrations on the photocurrent generation were analyzed. The biophotonic device was fabricated by the combination of the hetero biofilms and the photocurrent generation of the proposed device was observed. It was observed that the photocurrent generation of the proposed biodevice was improved by using the appropriate biopigments to be selected. The proposed artificial biophotonic device consisting of biopigments can be used to generate photocurrent by mimikng the photosynthesis in living system.