Silver Island Film for Enhancing Light Harvesting in Natural Photosynthetic Proteins

And the next paper¹ in the silver nanostructure series with our neighbours in the Surface Nanoengineering group and the Maćkowski group in Toruń. This time its a review of how Silver Island Films (SIFs)² affect the properties of light-sensitive proteins.

Here, experiments were done with proteins such as peridinin-chlorophyll-protein (PCP) or the Fenna–Matthews–Olson (FMO) complex, that often function as model-proteins, but also with the large Photosystem I (PSI). The article compares and discusses the effects of the SIFs on the different proteins and their fluorescence intensity and lifetime and also the influence of SIFs prepared in different ways. In general the plasmonic effects of the SIFs can help to enhance the fluorescence from the proteins adsorbed on the silver particles.

As usually in these silver particle papers Martin’s main contribution was making SEM imaging of the SIF samples, but also discussing the measurements with Joanna Kargul, who is a co-author here and the one providing the photosynthesis proteins.

1. D. Kowalska, M. Szalkowski, K. Sulowska, D. Buczynska, J. Niedziolka-Jonsson, M. Jonsson-Niedziolka, J. Kargul, H. Lokstein, S. Mackowski
   Silver Island Film for Enhancing Light Harvesting in Natural Photosynthetic Proteins, Int. J. Mol. Sci. 21, 2451 (2020). (link – OA)
2. And if anyone asks what the difference between a SIF and a silver nanoparticle film… I can’t really say. In some cases the SIF really has nice separated “islands”, but in many cases I really can’t see a difference. I guess it’s a name that stuck for some applications.