Scientists build electronic circuits in plants

Researchers from the Swedish University of Linköping have managed to create analog and digital electronic circuits in plants. To do this, they used the vascular system in live roses.

The researchers at the Laboratory of Organic Electronics were able to ‘build’ wiring, logic circuits and even picture elements in the plants. With the electronics, certain functions in plants can be properly monitored and followed by combining electrical signals with chemical processes in the plant. It could lead in the distant future to fuel cells based on photosynthesis, sensors and devices that alter the internal functions of plants.

For example, by being able to measure certain processes in living plants very precisely, it is possible to exert a very direct influence on growth and development, says one of the researchers in a message on the university’s website. Organic electronics are based on semiconducting polymers where ions and electrons can function as signal transmitters. This translates, as it were, the signals from the plant into electrical signals that are understandable to us.

The electronics enter the plant through a water-soluble polymer. This polymer is absorbed by the plant together with water. The polymer can then be transformed into a hydrogel that behaves as a thin film in the vessels or xylem through which the plant transports water and nutrients. By placing electrodes on both sides and a gate in the middle, the researchers made an analog transistor.

Another possibility was to create a kind of ‘display’ by forming a 3D structure in the cellulose of the leaf. The space between them was filled with a conductive polymer and so the cells formed pixels, divided by the capillaries in the leaf. For example, ‘electrochromatic’ plants can be made in which the leaf changes color.

Source: Science Advances