A high performance probe for the study of heterogeneity structure of the photosynthetic apparatus

Extensive research over the last few years in the domain of photobiology has been focused on the structure and function of the photosynthetic complexes in the thylakoid membrane. The number of phases in fluorescence induction as the identification of the possible heterogeneities of photosystem II are debated. Until now the instrumentation used to measure the fluorescence induction doesn´t permit an accurate determination of all photosynthetic parameters in the first millisecond of the induction. Moreover, the usual methods of analysis used to find the number of phases in the fluorescence induction presented numerical problems including the lack of resolution. In this study the authors show that the use of the newly developed transparent substrate AlInGaP light-emitting diode as a light source permits an accurate determination of variable fluorescence kinetics. In this report, the authors proved also that the use of the Generalized Pade-Laplace method permitted the resolution of several exponentials without any hypothesis on the components number. The experimental tests have shown that the authors´ instrumentation provides the advanced features needed for an accurate measurement of fluorescence transients useful to study the heterogeneity structure of the photosynthetic apparatus