Wide bandgap semiconductor nanomembranes as a long-term biointerface for flexible, implanted neuromodulator

Loading...
Thumbnail Image
File version

Version of Record (VoR)

Author(s)
Nguyen, TK
Barton, M
Ashok, A
Truong, TA
Yadav, S
Leitch, M
Nguyen, TV
Kashaninejad, N
Dinh, T
Hold, L
Yamauchi, Y
Nguyen, NT
Phan, HP
Primary Supervisor
Other Supervisors
Editor(s)
Date
2022
Size
File type(s)
Location
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strict flexibility requirements in neural implanted stimulations, the use of conventional thick and bulky packages is no longer applicable, posing major technical issues such as short device lifetime and long-term stability.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.

Journal Title

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America

Conference Title
Book Title
Edition
Volume

119

Issue

33

Thesis Type
Degree Program
School
Publisher link
Patent number
Funder(s)
Grant identifier(s)
Rights Statement
Rights Statement

© 2022 the Author(s). Published by PNAS. This article is distributed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License 4.0(CC BY-NC-ND).

Item Access Status
Note
Access the data
Related item(s)
Subject

Medical devices

Neurosciences

Nanotechnology

Microtechnology

bioencapsulation

flexible electronics

implanted applications

long-term stability

neuron modulators

Persistent link to this record
Citation

Nguyen, TK; Barton, M; Ashok, A; Truong, TA; Yadav, S; Leitch, M; Nguyen, TV; Kashaninejad, N; Dinh, T; Hold, L; Yamauchi, Y; Nguyen, NT; Phan, HP, Wide bandgap semiconductor nanomembranes as a long-term biointerface for flexible, implanted neuromodulator, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2022, 119 (33), pp. e2203287119

Collections