Researchers at Linköping University in Sweden have created analog¹ and digital electronics circuits inside living plants. The group at the Laboratory of Organic Electronics (LOE), under the leadership of Professor Magnus Berggren, have used the vascular² system of living roses to build key components³ of electronic circuits. The article featured in the journal Science Advances demonstrates wires, digital logic⁴, and even displays elements - fabricated inside the plants - that could develop new applications for organic electronics and new tools in plant science.

 

Plants are complex organisms that rely on the transport of ionic signals and hormones⁵ to perform necessary functions. However, plants operate on a much slower time scale making interacting with and studying plants difficult. Augmenting⁶ plants with electronic functionality would make it possible to combine electric signals with the plant's own chemical processes. Controlling and interfacing⁷ with chemical pathways in plants could pave the way to photosynthesis-based fuel cells, sensors⁸ and growth regulators, and devices that modulate⁹ the internal functions of plants.

 

"Previously¹⁰, we had no good tools for measuring the concentration of various molecules¹¹ in living plants. Now we'll be able to influence the concentration of the various substances in the plant that regulate growth and development. Here, I see great possibilities for learning more," says Ove Nilsson, professor of plant reproduction biology and director of the Umeå Plant Science Center, as well as a co-author of the article. 

 

The idea of putting electronics directly into trees for the paper industry originated in the 1990s while the LOE team at Linköping University was researching printed electronics on paper. Early efforts to introduce electronics in plants were attempted by Assistant Professor Daniel Simon, leader of the LOE's bioelectronics team, and Professor Xavier Crispin, leader of the LOE's solid-state device team, but a lack of funding from skeptical¹² investors¹³ halted these projects.

 

Thanks to independent research money from the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation in 2012, Professor Berggren was able to assemble a team of researchers to reboot the project. The team tried many attempts of introducing conductive polymers through rose stems. Only one polymer, called PEDOT-S, synthesized by Dr. Roger Gabrielsson, successfully assembled itself inside the xylem channels as conducting wires, while still allowing the transport of water and nutrients¹⁴. Dr. Eleni Stavrinidou used the material to create long (10 cm) wires in the xylem channels of the rose. By combining the wires with the electrolyte that surrounds these channels she was able to create an electrochemical transistor¹⁵, a transistor that converts ionic signals to electronic output. Using the xylem transistors¹⁶ she also demonstrated digital logic gate function.

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