One of the goals of the Neural Engineering System Design (NESD) program in the United States and of similar programs around the world is to develop an interface able to read from one million neurons in parallel. This is well beyond the capabilities of traditional multi-electrode arrays (MEAs), which are inherently limited in both spatial resolution and number of channels, due to issues with power dissipation and wiring.1, 2 To overcome these roadblocks our group has proposed a novel optrode array that measures electrical activity and uses light for both signal transduction and transmission, thus decoupling the bio-potentials from the signal acquisition circuitry.3 The technology relies on the sensitivity of a particular class of liquid crystals (LCs) to small electric fields and is analogous to a LC display, where the intensity of each pixel (optrode, in our case) is controlled by the electrical activity of the biological tissue. Here, we present the first use of such a transduction mechanism to record from cardiac tissue and investigate stimulus artifact suppression in rabbit sciatic nerve. Our results pave the way to the development of high-density high-channel-count optrode arrays for electrophysiology studies and brain-machine interfaces.
Nerve conduction and activity is a marker of disease and wellness and provides insight into the complex way the nervous system encodes information. We propose an electro-optical detection system and show the recordings from an electrically stimulated in-vitro nerve preparation. The system converts the action potential at the probing position to light intensity before any amplification and detection. Thence the light signal is detected by a photodetector. The new detection system has the ability of isolating the probing point and the amplification circuits, which reduces the electrical interference from the circuit. Moreover, the sampled signal transmitted via optical fibres rather than cables or wires makes it more robust to environmental noise. From the experiment, we demonstrated that the electro-optical detection system is able to detect and amplify the nerve response. By analysing the data, we can distinguish the response from the stimulus artifact and calculate CAP (compound action potential) propagation speed.
This paper presents an investigation into a novel electro-optic device for bi-directional brain-machine interface (BMI) by using both a chiral smectic C* liquid crystal to sense neuronal signals and the photovoltaic effect to stimulate neuronal tissues. By leveraging both the optical and electrical domains, this new electro-optic device can achieve high density of channel count and we have so far demonstrated up to 323 such channels. We focus here on tissue stimulation by adding a photovoltaic PN junction into the LC sensing structure described elsewhere to achieve a full bi-directional neuronal interface.
We report on the latest development of our photonics-based brain-machine interface. This work done in collaboration between UNSW and Macquarie University – and supported by the US Office of Naval Research – directly addresses the long-term DARPA challenge of producing implantable chips with 1 million neural connections. To the best of our knowledge, no technology has demonstrated the potential so far to scale up to such a massive number of channels.
Multielectrode arrays are a powerful tool for recording biopotentials, however they are limited by issues related to wiring complexity and channel-count. We present a novel concept for a liquid crystal-based optical electrode (optrode) that does not require the electrical circuitry associated with reading and amplifying each channel, thus providing superior spatial resolution and signal-to-noise ratio. Through computational modeling, we show that it is possible to accurately image biopotentials by coupling them to the electrodes of a LC cell and measuring their re ectance under parallel polarisers.
This study analyses the two-way actuation of a bi-layer cantilever of nickel titanium (NiTi) and silicon nitride thin films. The cantilever will curl on low temperature and uncurl on high temperature. the curling mechanism results from the stress relaxation of the NiTi film and the uncurling from the shape memory effect. A NiTi film with thickness of about 3 μm was deposited on a silicon substrate coated with a low-stress silicon nitride film with thickness of about 0.6 μm. the NiTi film was heat treated to recrystallise and memorise a flat shape. Over the heat treatment, residual stress built up in the NiTi film. The residual stress was measured to be around 400-800 MPa tensile by the wafer curvature method (Stoney's equation). The transformation temperatures of the NiTi film were measured to be about 36.3°C (Ap) and 32.6°C (Rp) by differential scanning calorimeter. The bi-layer cantilever was released from the silicon substrate by anisotropic wet etching (TMAH). Below R-phase finish temperature (<30°C) the shape memory effect was inactive and the NiTi film relaxed from the residual stress, which caused the cantilever to curl up. Above the austenite finish temperature (>50°C), the NiTi film uncurled toward its memorised shape because of the shape memory effect. Therefore, by cycling the temperature high and low, the cantilever uncurled and curled.
This paper describes work on two-way shape memory (TWSM) training of 52at.% Ti--48at.% Ni thin films. The amount of recoverable strain of shape memory alloys (SMA) with TWSM is about 2%. With TWSM, NiTi films will remember different high-temperature and low-temperature shapes. These shapes may be cycled fairly reproducibly by simply changing the temperature. In this work, NiTi films were deposited by RF magnetron sputtering from an NiTi target with atomic composition of 56at.% Ti--44at.% Ni. The atomic composition of the sputtered films was determined to be 52at.% Ti--48.0at.% Ni by electron microprobe. Solution treatment of the as-deposited films was required to crystallize and memorize a high-temperature shape, followed by age treatment to increase the transformation temperatures to above room temperature. The crystal structure of the solution-treated films was determined to be B2. The transformation temperatures of the age-treated films were determined by differential scanning calorimeter to be 311 K (A*) and 307 K (R*). TWSM training was carried out by over deforming the specimen while in the R-phase. Below Rf, a load was applied to the specimen beyond the usual strain limit for completely recoverable shape memory. Then, the load was removed prior to the next heating step, upon which the reverse transformation occurred under zero stress. With similar loads and temperatures, the procedure was then repeated. This paper will present details of the fabrication techniques, measurement results and its application.
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