B896 AND B870 COMPONENTS OF THE RHODOBACTER-SPHAEROIDES ANTENNA - A HOLE BURNING STUDY

Novel nonphotochemical hole burning action spectra are persented that yield the low-temperature absorption profiles of B896 and B870 and their underlying structures (linear electron-phonon coupling and site inhomogeneous broadening). The results establish that B896 and B870 are associated with the far more intense B875 and B850 bacteriochlorophyll a absorption bands, respectively, of the light harvesting I and II complexes. The homogeneous widths of the B896 and B870 zero-phonon holes are the same within experimental uncertainty, 3.2 cm-1 at 4.2 K, which corresponds to a total optical dephasing time of 6.6 ps. A number of interpretations for B870 and B896 are considered. Favored is one in which they are due to the lowest energy levels of the B850* and B875* exciton bands (asterisk denoting the S1(Q(y)) state). Based on studies of the dephasing of excitons in organic crystals, the 6.6-ps dephasing of B896* is attributed to exciton scattering with energetic inequivalent neighboring unit cells. Such scattering and B870 to B875 energy transfer are suggested to be contributors to the dephasing of B870*. The effect of glasslike structural heterogeneity on the optical selection rules for unit cells of cyclic symmetry is also considered.