Researchers Create Rechargeable, Glow-in-the-Dark Succulents [View all]

The team hopes their work, which is still in the early phases, might one day build the foundation for a novel sustainable lighting system

Margherita Bassi - Daily Correspondent

August 29, 2025



The research team's glowing succulents, which lit up in shades of red, green and blue Liu et al., Matter


Imagine walking through a garden after sunset. Instead of flicking the outdoor lights on, the space is already lit by a soft glow emanating from common houseplants lining the path.

In a study published Wednesday in the journal Matter, researchers have taken a step toward making that scene a reality: Scientists created glow-in-the-dark succulents that recharge with exposure to light, in the hopes that they might pave the way for new sustainable lighting systems.

The team injected plants with strontium aluminate, the same material in the glow-in-the-dark stars children sometimes stick to their bedroom ceilings. Strontium aluminate displays phosphorescence—meaning it absorbs energy from light, then releases it slowly—as opposed to bioluminescence, which is when an organism emits its own light via chemical reactions, as reported by the New York Times’ Cara Giaimo.

- - -

Fun fact: Glowing plants
Researchers in the 1980s introduced a gene from a firefly into a tobacco plant, making it perceptibly glow in total darkness.

- - -

At first, the process was “continuous trial and error,” Shuting Liu, first author of the paper and a researcher at the South China Agricultural University, tells the New York Times. While other scientists had previously used strontium aluminate in plants, Liu and her colleagues sought a brighter and longer glow by injecting larger particles.

The winning size for these particles was around seven micrometers (less than 0.0003 inches), or roughly equivalent to the width of a single red blood cell. Smaller particles made a dimmer glow, whereas larger particles couldn’t travel through plants very far.

. . .