Engineers are looking to Nature to work out how to make solar power in the shade.

Teams have been investigating the makeup of photosynthetic organisms, which are able to harvest light as weather conditions change from full sun to deep cloud.

New insights into one of the molecular mechanisms behind light harvesting are being presented this week by researchers from Stanford University.

At the 58th Annual Biophysical Society Meeting, graduate student Hsiang-Yu Yang and post-doctorate research Gabriela Schlau-Cohen described how natural systems may provide designs to improve the efficiency and cost of solar cells and similar devices in the future.

"Through our approach, we are able to have a better understanding of the natural designs of light harvesting systems, especially how the same molecular machinery can perform efficient light harvesting at low light while safely dissipating excess excitation energy at high light," explained Yang.

The Stanford group has looked at various photosynthetic antenna proteins using a trap capable of securing a single molecule.

The team has uncovered new states of the light harvesting process in microscopic plants, which operate at different degrees of power and efficiency.

“By analysing the transition between these states in a bacterial antenna protein we found a process that may be one of the molecular mechanisms of photoprotection, or the way in which the organism protects itself from damage by excess light,” Schlau-Cohen said.

The investigations with the advanced technique will continue, as scientist try to understand the natural designs of light harvesting systems, and find out whether the same process appears in higher plants.

An abstract from the recent discussion is accessible here.