The emerging field of living technologies aims to create new functional hybrid materials in which living systems interface with artificial ones. Combining research into living technologies with emerging developments in computing architecture has enabled the generation of organic electronics from plants and slime mould. Here, we expand on this work by studying capacitive properties of a substrate colonised by mycelium of grey oyster fungi, Pleurotus ostreatus. Capacitors play a fundamental role in traditional analogue and digital electronic systems and have a range of uses including sensing, energy storage and filter circuits. Mycelium has the potential to be used as an organic replacement for traditional capacitor technology. Here, were show that the capacitance of mycelium is in the order of hundreds of pico-Farads. We also demonstrate that the charge density of the mycelium `dielectric' decays rapidly with increasing distance from the source probes. This is important as it indicates that small cells of mycelium could be used as a charge carrier or storage medium, when employed as part of an array with reasonable density.

中文翻译：

---

菌丝体基质中的电容存储

新兴的生命技术领域旨在创造新的功能性混合材料，其中生命系统与人工系统交互。将对生命技术的研究与计算架构的新兴发展相结合，使植物和粘菌产生有机电子产品成为可能。在这里，我们通过研究由灰牡蛎真菌 Pleurotus ostreatus 菌丝体定殖的基质的电容特性来扩展这项工作。电容器在传统的模拟和数字电子系统中扮演着重要的角色，具有广泛的用途，包括传感、能量存储和滤波电路。菌丝体有可能被用作传统电容器技术的有机替代品。在这里，表明菌丝体的电容在数百皮法拉的数量级。我们还证明了菌丝体“电介质”的电荷密度随着与源探针的距离增加而迅速衰减。这很重要，因为它表明当用作具有合理密度的阵列的一部分时，菌丝体的小细胞可以用作电荷载流子或存储介质。