Growth of the green algae Chlamydomonas reinhardtii under red and blue lasers

✍ Scribed by Sara S. Kuwahara; Joel L. Cuello; Graham Myhre; Stanley Pau

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2011
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 592 KB
• Volume: 49
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0143-8166
• DOI: 10.1016/j.optlaseng.2010.11.015

✦ Synopsis

Red and blue lasers, holding promise as an electric light source for photosynthetic systems on account of being true monochromatic, high-power, and having high electrical-conversion efficiency, were employed in growing a green alga, Chlamydomonas reinhardtii. The laser treatments tested included: 655-nm Red; 680-nm Red; 655-nm Red + 474-nm Blue and 680-nm Red +474-nm Blue. A white cold cathode lamp with spectral output similar to that of white fluorescent lamp served as control. C. reinhardtii successfully grew and divided under the 655 and 680-nm red lasers as well as under the white-light control. Supplementing either red with blue laser, however, resulted in increased algae cell count that significantly exceeded those under both red lasers and the white-light control on average by 241%.