The quantum silkworm releases a glowing silk thread

Through quantum technology, scientists have successfully made silk threads that glow in a completely natural way.

Recently, a team of Chinese scientists, working at Fudan University, Shanghai has successfully made silkworms that glow brightly like a lantern.

Interestingly, not only the silkworms themselves glow, but their cocoons, pupae, and silk can do the same. Even when the silkworm grows into a moth, that butterfly will also emit light.

It is possible to combine many colors so that the quantum silkworm switches to the desired state.

To do this, the scientists extracted carbon from mulberry leaves - the food of silkworms, and made a quantum dot just a few nanometers in size from that carbon.

As a result, when light hits a quantum particle, it pushes the particle's electrons to a higher state, leading to a build-up of energy. When this electron degrades, it releases energy in the form of light, which in turn leads to luminescence.

Previously, to create glowing silkworms, scientists had to use gene editing technology. However, the process is expensive, and mutations can be inherited and harm the next generation of silkworms.

Quantum silkworms, on the other hand, are very adaptable and inexpensive because they only need to eat a particular type of food. Preliminary results show that the method is simple, yet achieves excellent biocompatibility.

According to the researchers, luminous silkworms could be used in biomedical research, or in the textile industry, in an efficient and highly valuable way, because their silk can be easily seen by the eye. often.