Biophotons: ultraweak light emission from living systems

Spontaneous ultraweak light emission phenomena that result from living systems, also referred to as ‘biophoton emission’, occur quite generally in nature and are coupled to the endogenous production of excited states within a living system. The detection and characterization of biophoton emission may be of significant importance because the coherence and statistical features of underlying primary excitations governing endogenous biophysical processes are directly transferred to the photon field and vice versa. Examples from organisms and living systems at various levels of the biological hierarchy show that biophoton emission is an exciting area of research with potential future applications in biology, medicine, pharmacology, environmental sciences and food technology.