What appears to be an ordinary cut rose is in fact the first-ever fully functional electronic plant.
Researchers from Linköping Univ. in Sweden pumped a self-organizing conducting polymer into the natural vasculature of the rose to create a flower that could theoretically act as a power source for sensors, switches, and other applications.
The development is still in its early stages. In 2015, the researchers, led by organic electronics professor Magnus Berggren, reported their first success: A cut rose immersed in an aqueous solution of self-doped conducting polymer poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT) soaked up the solution and formed wires more than 2 in. (5 cm) long inside its vasculature, or xylem. But Berggren and his colleagues could only achieve localized circuitry in this initial version of their electronic rose. The conductive polymer penetrated into the rose’s stem, but vacuum infiltration was needed to get the polymer into the leaf vasculature. In this initial method, leaves are soaked in the solution within a vacuum chamber, which forces air...
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