MATERIALS SCIENCE AND CHEMISTRY

Materials Science and Chemistry

Principal Investigator: Vangelis Daskalakis , Cyprus University of Technology

HPC Platform used: SuperMUC-NG of LRZ

Local Project ID: pn34we

In this project, the biophysics of Photosynthesis are probed employing high-performance computing. Photosynthesis is based on the Sun light and fuels the metabolic pathways of numerous organisms in our biosphere. However, fluctuations in the light intensity or quality are expected due to the diurnal cycle, or the environmental conditions and could be detrimental to plants. Absorption of light and tunnelling of the associated energy towards the reaction centres of the photosynthetic apparatus are finely-tuned within a well-orchestrated photoprotective mechanism. The atomic-scale details of this mechanism is probed by computational biophysics, with applications on the increase of crop yields and artificial photosynthesis.