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the discovery will open up a new field of research, and it could lead to a new generation of superefficient light-sensitive devices.

the experiments showed that the electron vibrations resulting from the photons striking the antennas persisted at full strength four times longer than expected. The reason, the researchers report this week in Nature, is that quantum mechanics controls the energy. "It was an utter surprise," says physical chemist and co-author Gregory Scholes of the University of Toronto in Canada. For the results to have occurred, he explains, a property called quantum coherence must have been operating.

the research "will open an entirely new area of biophysics." And that effort should have "huge implications," he says, "not only for how we think about biophysics, but also light harvesting and light-sensitive devices."