Author notes

Étienne Boulais, Nicolas P. D. Sawaya and Rémi Veneziano: These authors contributed equally to this work.

Affiliations

Department of Biological Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA Étienne Boulais, Rémi Veneziano, James L. Banal & Mark Bathe MIT—Harvard Center for Excitonics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA Étienne Boulais, Nicolas P. D. Sawaya, James L. Banal, Toru Kondo, Gabriela S. Schlau-Cohen, Alán Aspuru-Guzik & Mark Bathe Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA Nicolas P. D. Sawaya & Alán Aspuru-Guzik Center for Innovation in Medicine, The Biodesign Institute, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona 85287, USA Alessio Andreoni, Sarthak Mandal, Su Lin & Neal W. Woodbury Department of Chemistry, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA Toru Kondo & Gabriela S. Schlau-Cohen School of Molecular Sciences, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona 85287, USA Su Lin, Neal W. Woodbury & Hao Yan Center for Molecular Design and Biomimetics, The Biodesign Institute, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona 85287, USA Hao Yan

Contributions

E.B. designed and performed molecular modelling and exciton transport simulations, designed and performed CD experiments, designed UV–vis and fluorescence spectroscopy experiments, and analysed the data. N.S. designed and performed the simulations for excitonic properties and exciton transport, and analysed the data. R.V. designed and performed UV–vis and CD experiments, ITC experiments, designed the fluorescence spectroscopy experiments, prepared the samples, and analysed the data. J.L.B. designed and performed quantum yield measurements to measure the coherence length and steady-state fluorescence spectroscopy to measure energy transfer efficiency. T.K. designed and performed experiments to measure energy transfer efficiencies using time-resolved fluorescence spectroscopy. G.S.S.C. designed and supervised the experiments to measure the coherence length and energy transfer efficiencies using steady-state and time-resolved spectroscopy. A.A., S.M. and S.L. designed and performed the fluorescence and pump–probe spectroscopy experiments, and analysed the data. N.W. designed and supervised the fluorescence and pump–probe spectroscopy study, and analysed the data. H.Y. supervised the fluorescence and pump–probe spectroscopy study, and analysed the data. A.A.-G. supervised the simulation study, and analysed the data. M.B. designed and supervised the overall study, and analysed the data. E.B., N.S. and M.B. wrote the manuscript. J.L.B., R.V. and S.L. edited the manuscript and all authors commented on the manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Hao Yan or Alán Aspuru-Guzik or Mark Bathe.