Imagine a technology that would not only provide a green and renewable source of electrical energy, but could also help scrub the atmosphere of excessive carbon dioxide resulting from the burning of fossil fuels.

That's the promise of artificial versions of photosynthesis, the process by which green plants have been converting solar energy into electrochemical energy for millions of years.

The first direct experimental links between atomic and electronic structures in pigment-protein complexes while energy is being transferred during photosynthesis have been attained.