Liwen received his B.S. in chemistry from University of California, Berkeley. He is currently a PhD candidate in chemistry working to understand the energy and charge transfer dynamics of photosynthetic light harvesting complexes.

Spectroscopic techniques using classical laser light have been used extensively to study the energy transfer dynamics of photosynthetic light harvesting complexes in vitro, resulting in many insights and new questions, e.g., on the role of vibrations in assisting excitonic energy transfer. In recent years, quantum light spectroscopy has received much attention due to its potential to access information that is inaccessible through classical spectroscopy.

Based on our previous work on the dynamics of light harvesting complex under single photon Fock state excitation, we plan to develop a theoretical understanding of the single photon pump-probe spectroscopy and use it to study the bacterial LHII complex, in parallel with experimental studies planned in the Fleming laboratory. Specifically, we want to consider a single photon pump-probe experiment, where the pump photon and the probe photon are entangled. The pump photon excites the B800 ring and the probe photon probes the energy transfer to the B850 ring. By measuring the statistics of the outgoing photons as a function of the delay time between the pump and the probe, we expect to gain new insights into the energy transfer dynamics.