Flexible Polymer Optical Waveguides for Integrated Optogenetic Brain Implants

Citation
IEEE 36th International Conference on Micro Electro Mechanical Systems Conference (MEMS 2023)
Contribution to Conference
2023 IEEE 36th International Conference on Micro Electro Mechanical Systems Conference, MEMS 2023  
Publisher DOI
10.1109/mems49605.2023.10052492
Publisher
IEEE
This paper presents a manufacturing process for flexible optical waveguides made of biocompatible polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) to be attached to future optogenetic implants. Based on a complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC), the system uses integrated single photon avalanche diodes (SPADs) as sensors for fluorescence imaging (FI) and post-CMOS micro light-emitting diodes (µLEDs) for stimulation [1]. Attaching fibers to SPADs and µLEDs to collect and distribute light from and to deeper brain layers can unfold previously unachieved medical applications. Two technologies for biocompatible waveguide manufacturing are presented: thin-film and molding. Such a combination of integrated bidirectional implantable ASICs with custom waveguide manufacturing is not limited to medical scenarios but opens up a broad field of applications.