Harvesting and distributing energy are two of the major challenges faced by society. In Nature, these processes are crucial for all forms of life and have been fine-tuned within living organisms for hundreds of millions of years.

On the atomic scale, energy is quantised, e.g. as a photon of light, and its behaviour is governed by quantum mechanics. Taking inspiration from the ingenious solutions found in Nature, in this project you will explore novel ways of harnessing quantum effects in artificial, quantum-engineered molecular devices. Specifically, you will perform open quantum systems modelling of energy flow through biological and biomimetic molecular networks.

An exciting opportunity for this project would be to contribute to the design and realisation of a bio-inspired sunlight-pumped laser system that directly transforms ambient light into a coherent laser output beam together with our network of experimental collaborators.

More broadly, the project aims to contribute to the quest of realising highly efficient organic energy harvesters that could replace state-of-the-art photovoltaics and offer a versatile and sustainable platform for generating green energy.