A subnanolitre tetherless optoelectronic microsystem for chronic neural recording in awake mice
The long-term recording of neural activity could be used to understand complex behaviours and disorders. However, the development of technology capable of such measurements faces a variety of technical challenges, including the relative motion between recording electrodes and tissue and the excessive displaced volume from implanted electronics. Here we report a subnanolitre-volume tetherless optoelectronic microsystem for neural recording. The system relies on light for photovoltaic power and data transfer, through a light-emitting diode, eliminating the need for wires or other tethers. It uses a single AlGaAs diode as both photovoltaic and light-emitting diode. Complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor circuits provide low-noise amplification, pulse-position-modulated encoding and electro-optical transduction. Two-dimensional materials processing techniques, vacuum annealing and atomic layer deposition, in conjunction with a standard complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor fabrication process, provide compact encapsulation against the corrosive conditions of biological media. We show that the subnanolitre neural implant is capable of chronic (365 days) in vivo recordings in awake mice.
Authors
- Jan Lammerding (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4335-8611)
- Wenchao Gu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0967-1682)
- Jesse C. Werth (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0124-9273)
- Shahaboddin Ghajari (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2155-9535)
- Alyosha Christopher Molnar (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7674-1874)
- Paul L. McEuen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6438-5750)
- Alejandro J. Cortese (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5303-6718)
- Thomas A. Cleland (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7506-1201)
- Jesse H. Goldberg (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0422-8902)
- Melanie Wallace (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4728-4130)
- Chunyan Wu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6294-4512)
- Chris Xu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3493-6427)
- Shitong Zhao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3522-7216)
- Sanaz Sadeghi (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6928-0544)
- Conrad L. Smart (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8756-3284)
- Kibaek Choe (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6396-8452)
- Aaron T. Mok (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0061-0258)
- Hind C. Zahr (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3510-5542)
- Ju Uhn Park (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0066-3205)
- Melissa R. Warden (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2240-3997)
- Tianyu Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6087-6376)
- Weiru Fan (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0278-8463)
- Sunwoo Lee (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9750-7224)
- Yumin Zheng (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2341-1967)
- Rui Jiao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0000-6434-9672)
- Praneeth Mogalipuvvu
Institutions
- Boston University (US)
- University of Arizona (US)
- Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KR)
- Nanyang Technological University (SG)
- University of Phoenix (US)
- Cornell University (US)
- Analog Photonics (United States) (US)
- Phoenix College (US)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Nature Electronics
- Published
- 2025-11-03
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1038/s41928-025-01484-1
- Primary Topic
- Photoreceptor and optogenetics research
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00
Funders
- University of Pittsburgh
- National Research Foundation
- National University of Singapore
- Ministry of Education - Singapore
- Nanyang Technological University
- Hanyang University
- Ministry of Education, India
- National Institutes of Health