Vision is initiated by photoisomerization of 11-cis retinal in the visual pigment rhodopsin — a fast and efficient process. Spectroscopic studies now demonstrate that the transition from the reactant photoexcited-state to the ground-state photoproduct, which mediates this important reaction, occurs on a sub-50-fs timescale and is vibrationally coherent.
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Mathies, R. A coherent picture of vision. Nature Chem 7, 945–947 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nchem.2406
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nchem.2406
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