December 19, 2018 Preprint Open Access

A heptamethine cyanine dye suitable as antenna in biohybrids based on bacterial photosynthetic reaction center

Roberta Ragni; Gabriella Leone; Simona La Gatta; Giorgio Rizzo; Marco Lo Presti; Vincenzo De Leo; Francesco Milano; Massimo Trotta; Gianluca M. Farinola

Sunlight is the most environmental friendly energy source available on Earth; many efforts
devoted to design artificial photoconversion systems are ongoing, nevertheless they are still
expensive and poorly efficient. Photoconversion devices made with organic-biological
hybrids, or biohybrids, based on the photosynthetic reaction center (RC) have been
introduced. In these systems, the photoenzyme is garnished with artificial antennas to enhance
the photoactivity of the RC. Here we present a newly synthesized heptamethine cyanine dye
that fulfills requisites to act as efficient RC light harvesting antenna.