Vision in plants by artificial photosynthesis

Abstract

Light is an essential element for plants because it is the source of growth for plants. Plant vision refers to the fact that plants are receptive to visual information. Plants acquire information on the amount, the direction, and the spectral composition of surrounding light and perceive their visual environment, although the mechanism is quite different from the human visual system. In this work, we have emulated the vision in plants by artificial photosynthesis. By measuring the photocurrents generated from photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting, we have emulated the three-dimensional image map seen by plants. Titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanowire array, one of the popular PEC devices was used as a single-pixel sensor and a 2D sensor array was simulated with a mechanical scanner. Three-dimensional information was successfully obtained by the principle of stereo vison. We believe the finding could shed new light on the mechanism of plant vision and reveal its secret.