A plant based electrochemical device with transistor like behavior

Abstract

Since its invention, transistor has become the fundamental building block of virtually all of today’s integrated circuits which constitute the electronics technology. In the present letter, we report the vegetal version of a self-powered electrochemical transistor, i.e., a device with an inherent energy source which exhibits energy-converting and amplifying-modulating properties. Surprisingly, at the interface constituted by the surface of an n-type germanium sample and a vegetal slice it become apparent that the surface of the n-type germanium passing anodic current acts as a multiplying collector for holes. Experimental transconductance characteristics show well-defined the cut-off, active and saturation regions. Likewise, since the collector is itself part of an electrolytic cell, device incorporates its own power supply. Thereby, it is able to reproduce an analogical AC signal via the DC electrolytic cell voltage. Furthermore, one of the most outstanding properties of the transistors is their DC current gain (h_FE), which for commercially available small-signal transistors typically ranges 50–350, and for medium power transistors 15–70. The proposed device presents an h_FE of 70 and 40 for the potato and apple based transistors respectively. Genuinely, this approach opens an alternative route for the development of a novel green electronics based on self-powered vegetative devices. Genuinely, this approach opens an alternative route for the development of a novel green electronics based on self-powered vegetative devices which could works as sensing devices for monitoring living plants during sow and harvest.