A System-Level Feasibility Study of a Lead-Free Ultrasonically Powered Light Delivery Implant for Optogenetics

Body implants play a crucial role in clinical applications, encompassing data acquisition, diagnosis, and disease treatment. However, challenges in size, power consumption, and biocompatibility, particularly in brain applications requiring small, battery-free devices for deep areas, hinder their development. Despite potential advances through simplified, single-purpose devices, such as recording or stimulation, overcoming the power and biocompatibility issues remains a hurdle. Addressing this, the article introduces an ultrasonically powered light delivery implant (LDI) utilizing lead-free piezoelectric material (Li0.08K0.46Na0.46) NbO3 to harvest energy from external ultrasonic waves. The prototype includes a piezoelectric cube, a chip fabricated in 180 nm CMOS technology, and a microscale light-emitting diode (mu-LED) for optogenetics. Achieving an end-to-end efficiency of 0.75%, the LDI holds promise for various optogenetic studies, particularly in animal studies targeting specific brain areas for treating Parkinson's disease. The delivered optical power on the mu-LED surface, at 14.1 mW mm-2, presents applicability to diverse studies involving specific opsins. This article introduces a new light-delivery implant that is wirelessly powered by ultrasonics. The system consists of an integrated circuit, a blue light-emitting diode, and an (Li0.08K0.46Na0.46) NbO3 cube as the energy harvester. The results demonstrate the device's feasibility for use in optical neuro-modulation for the treatment of diseases such as Parkinson's disease.image (c) 2023 WILEY-VCH GmbH

Automated summary

This article introduces a new light-delivery implant that is wirelessly powered by ultrasonics. The device shows feasibility for optical neuro-modulation in the treatment of diseases such as Parkinson's disease.