(380i) Plant Based Illumination Enabled By Functionalized Nanophosphor Particles

The concept of a light-emitting plant, or plant exhibiting chemiluminescence powered from its own stored chemical energy, offers promise to advance off grid illumination and other autonomous photonic applications. In this work, introduce and investigate an additional nanoparticle designed to augment plant light emission in the form of silica coated strontium aluminate nanoparticles as nanophosphore elements. These nanoparticles can adsorb and re-emit generated light at longer times, increasing the duration of light emission. Moreover, such nanophosphores can also scavenge additional energy from solar fluence, increasing and augmenting total light emission from the plant. Infiltrated strontium aluminate particles showed homogeneous distribution inside plants leaves in spongy mesophyll region without penetration inside plants cell, preserving their intact structure, as well as efficient particles infiltration deep into the plant’s stem.