The discovery that gold nanoparticles can induce luminescence in leaves has opened up the prospect of using roadside trees as streetlights. Post-doctor Yen-Hsun Su of Research Center for Applied Science (RCAS), Academia Sinica, Taiwan, implanted gold nanoparticles into Bacopa caroliniana plants and found that, when exposed to high wavelength ultraviolet light, the gold nanoparticles can produce a blue-violet fluorescence that triggers a red emission of the surrounding chlorophyll.
Dr. Yen-Hsun Su is a former student of the Department of Physics at National Cheng Kung University (NCKU) in Taiwan where he was supervised by Prof. Wei-Min Zhang of Department of Physics and Assistant Prof. Shih-Hui Chang of Institute of Electro-Optical Science and Engineering.
Upon learning of the discovery, Assistant Prof. Shih-Hui Chang said: “Light emitting diode (LED) has replaced traditional light source in many display panels and street lights on the road. A lot of light emitting diode, especially white light emitting diode, uses phosphor powder to stimulate light of different wavelengths. However, phosphor powder is highly toxic and its price is expensive. As a result, Dr. Yen-Hsun Wu had the idea to discover a method which is less toxic to replace phosphor powder which can harm human bodies and cause environmental pollution. This is a major motivation for him to engage in the research at the first place.”
Prof. Wei-Min Zhang, Assistant Prof. Shih-Hui Chang and Dr. Yen-Hsun Su have emphasized that the technologies and bioluminescence efficiency need to be improved for the trees to replace street lights in the future and reach the goal of energy saving and environmental protection, but Dr. Yen-Hsun Su is hopeful.
“In the future, bio-LED could be used to make roadside trees luminescent at night. This will save energy and absorb CO2 as the bio-LED luminescence will cause the chloroplast to conduct photosynthesis,” said Dr. Yen-Hsun Su in an interview with Chemistry World.
We don\'t need to tamper with all trees in nature.
We can plant a few ones on the streets and make\'em to glow, there\'s no need to make the Amazonia florest to glow lol
Especially the comments section.
Then you get comments from people who don\'t do the \"2 2\" link - of many trees are deciduous (annual leave droppers), although they may not be the target species, gold is expensive ($$$$$), and they have to aim high frequency Ultra Violet light at the trees (lights power) just to make the trees glow.
Sure it\'s an interesting discovery, and the relative power levels are not discussed etc., but simple issues are not raised like how many lumens of UV are put into an entire tree, and how many lumens does the tree give out.
As far as messing with the tree like that - I am doubtful that the tree is really happy about getting messed with.
Again - it\'s more of that \"Oh I have an idea\" and the journalists dream up more pie in the sky bullshit to sell the story..... \"\"One day entire cities may be lit by soaking all the trees in ultraviolet, by injecting 10,000 tons of gold into them annually, by driving the UV lights with enough electricity at double the amount and cost of regular street lighting....\"
Got the hand on more than just the pen.