Tunneling Electrons Triggered Energy Transfer between Coherently Coupled Donor-Acceptor Molecules

Energy transfer is ubiquitous in natural and artificial light-harvesting systems, and coherent energy transfer, a highly efficient energy transfer process, has been accepted to play a vital role in such systems. However, the energy oscillation of coherent energy transfer is exceedingly difficult to capture because of its evanescence due to the interaction with a thermal environment. Here a microscopic quantum model is used to study the time evolution of electrons triggered energy transfer between coherently coupled donor-acceptor molecules in scanning tunneling microscope (STM). A series of topics in the plasmonic nanocavity (PNC) coupled donor-acceptor molecules system are discussed, including resonant and non-resonant coherent energy transfer, dephasing assisted energy transfer, PNC coupling strength dependent energy transfer, Fano resonance of coherently coupled donor-acceptor molecules, and polariton-mediated energy transfer.