Abstract
AbstractThis paper is concerned with the life times of the singlet excited state of photosynthetic pigments, the time required for intermolecular transfer of energy between different species of pigments within the chloroplast, and the time required for intramolecular transfer from the protein to the chromophore. To obtain information on these topics the time course of fluorescence from chloroplasts and photosynthetic pigments was studied. The concepts and techniques used in the present investigation may be applied to the general problem of how energy is transferred, stabilized, and transformed in other such highly organized biological systems as mitochondria, muscle fibrils, and retinal rods.