Researchers have incorporated electronic circuitry into the tissues of a rose.
Magnus Berggren at Linköping University in Norrköping, Sweden, and his colleagues submerged the cut end of a rose stem into a water-based solution of PEDOT, a conducting polymer that is used in printable electronics. Capillary action pulled the polymer up into the rose's vascular tissue, where it came out of solution and self-assembled into wires, some as long as 10 centimetres. By attaching gold probes coated with PEDOT to the wires, the researchers made individual transistors and demonstrated a simple digital circuit. The transistors' electrical performance was on a par with that of conventional printed PEDOT circuits.
The technology could eventually be used to record or regulate plant physiology, the authors say.
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Flower given digital power. Nature 527, 413 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/527413c
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/527413c