Model of Photovoltage Response of Bacteriorhodopsin in PVA Films

摘要

Bacteriorhodopsin (BR) is a light-transducing protein contained in a purple membrane of microorganism Halobacterium salinarium. Natural function of BR is to act as a light-driven proton pump in energy balancing mechanism of the bacterium. Numerous technical applications of BR that use proton pumping have been proposed. A thin film of oriented BR enclosed between two electrodes generates a temporal photovoltage response when illuminated. The intensity of pho-toresponse depends on intensity and spectral power distribution of illuminating light. This work describes a model of wavelength dependency of photoresponse of elements containing a thin film of wild form of BR and its reconstituents and compares the model to experimentally measured values.