Wide bandgap semiconductor nanomembranes as a long-term biointerface for flexible, implanted neuromodulator
Article
Article Title | Wide bandgap semiconductor nanomembranes as a long-term biointerface for flexible, implanted neuromodulator |
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Article Category | Article |
Authors | Nguyen, Tuan-Khoa, Barton, Matthew, Ashok, Aditya, Truong, Thanh-An, Yadav, Sharda, Leitch, Michael, Nguyen, Thanh-Vinh, Kashaninejad, Navid, Dinh, Toan, Hold, Leonie, Yamauchi, Yusuke, Nguyen, Nam-Trung and Phan, Hoang-Phuong |
Journal Title | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) |
Journal Citation | 119 (33) |
Article Number | e2203287119 |
Number of Pages | 9 |
Year | 16 Aug 2022 |
Publisher | National Academy of Sciences |
Place of Publication | United States |
ISSN | 0027-8424 |
1091-6490 | |
Digital Object Identifier (DOI) | https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2203287119 |
Web Address (URL) | https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2203287119 |
Abstract | Electrical neuron stimulation holds promise for treating chronic neurological disorders, including spinal cord injury, epilepsy, and Parkinson’s disease. The implementation of ultrathin, flexible electrodes that can offer noninvasive attachment to soft neural tissues is a breakthrough for timely, continuous, programable, and spatial stimulations. With strict flexibility requirements in neural implanted stimulations, the use of conventional thick and bulky packages is no longer applicable, posing major technical issues such as short device lifetime and long-term stability. We introduce herein a concept of long-lived flexible neural electrodes using silicon carbide (SiC) nanomembranes as a faradic interface and thermal oxide thin films as an electrical barrier layer. The SiC nanomembranes were developed using a chemical vapor deposition (CVD) process at the wafer level, and thermal oxide was grown using a high-quality wet oxidation technique. The proposed material developments are highly scalable and compatible with MEMS technologies, facilitating the mass production of long-lived implanted bioelectrodes. Our experimental results showed excellent stability of the SiC/silicon dioxide (SiO2) bioelectronic system that can potentially last for several decades with well-maintained electronic properties in biofluid environments. We demonstrated the capability of the proposed material system for peripheral nerve stimulation in an animal model, showing muscle contraction responses comparable to those of a standard non-implanted nerve stimulation device. The design concept, scalable fabrication approach, and multimodal functionalities of SiC/SiO2 flexible electronics offer an exciting possibility for fundamental neuroscience studies, as well as for neural stimulation–based therapies. |
Keywords | flexible electronics; implanted applications; neuron modulators; bioencapsulation; long-term stability |
Contains Sensitive Content | Does not contain sensitive content |
ANZSRC Field of Research 2020 | 401705. Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) |
Byline Affiliations | Griffith University |
University of Queensland | |
National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Japan | |
Centre for Future Materials | |
National Institute for Materials Science, Japan | |
University of New South Wales |
https://research.usq.edu.au/item/xzxq8/wide-bandgap-semiconductor-nanomembranes-as-a-long-term-biointerface-for-flexible-implanted-neuromodulator
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nguyen-et-al-2022-wide-bandgap-semiconductor-nanomembranes-as-a-long-term-biointerface-for-flexible-implanted.pdf | ||
License: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 | ||
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