Origami nanogap electrodes for reversible nanoparticle trapping.

We present a facile desktop fabrication method for origami-based nanogap indium tin oxide (ITO) electrokinetic particle traps, providing a simplified approach compared to traditional lithographic techniques and effective trapping of nanoparticles. Our approach involves bending ITO thin films on optically transparent polyethylene terephthalate (PET), creating an array of parallel nanogaps. By strategically introducing weak points through cut-sharp edges, we successfully controlled the spread of nanocracks. A single crack spanning the constriction width and splitting the conductive layers forms a nanogap that can effectively trap small nanoparticles after applying an alternating electric potential across the nanogap. We analyze the conditions for reversible trapping and optimal performance of the nanogap ITO electrodes with optical microscopy and electrokinetic impedance spectroscopy. Our findings highlight the potential of this facile fabrication method for the use of ITO at active electro-actuated traps in microfluidic systems.

Tissue-Like Optoelectronic Neural Interface Enabled by PEDOT:PSS Hydrogel for Cardiac and Neural Stimulation.

Optoelectronic biointerfaces have made a significant impact on modern science and technology from understanding the mechanisms of the neurotransmission to the recovery of the vision for blinds. They are based on the cell interfaces made of organic or inorganic materials such as silicon, graphene, oxides, quantum dots, and π-conjugated polymers, which are dry and stiff unlike a cell/tissue environment. On the other side, wet and soft hydrogels have recently been started to attract significant attention for bioelectronics because of its high-level tissue-matching biomechanics and biocompatibility. However, it is challenging to obtain optimal opto-bioelectronic devices by using hydrogels requiring device, heterojunction, and hydrogel engineering. Here, an optoelectronic biointerface integrated with a poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(styrene sulfonate), PEDOT:PSS, hydrogel that simultaneously achieves efficient, flexible, stable, biocompatible, and safe photostimulation of cells is demonstrated. Besides their interfacial tissue-like biomechanics, ≈34 kPa, and high-level biocompatibility, hydrogel-integration facilitates increase in charge injection amounts sevenfolds with an improved responsivity of 156 mA W-1 , stability under mechanical bending , and functional lifetime over three years. Finally, these devices enable stimulation of individual hippocampal neurons and photocontrol of beating frequency of cardiac myocytes via safe charge-balanced capacitive currents. Therefore, hydrogel-enabled optoelectronic biointerfaces hold great promise for next-generation wireless neural and cardiac implants.

Bidirectional optical neuromodulation using capacitive charge-transfer.

Artificial control of neural activity allows for understanding complex neural networks and improving therapy of neurological disorders. Here, we demonstrate that utilization of photovoltaic biointerfaces combined with light waveform shaping can generate safe capacitive currents for bidirectional modulation of neurons. The differential photoresponse of the biointerface due to double layer capacitance facilitates the direction control of capacitive currents depending on the slope of light intensity. Moreover, the strength of capacitive currents is controlled by changing the rise and fall time slope of light intensity. This approach allows for high-level control of the hyperpolarization and depolarization of membrane potential at single-cell level. Our results pave the way toward advanced bioelectronic functionalities for wireless and safe control of neural activity.

Organic Photovoltaic Pseudocapacitors for Neurostimulation.

Neural interfaces are the fundamental tools to understand the brain and cure many nervous-system diseases. For proper interfacing, seamless integration, efficient and safe digital-to-biological signal transduction, and long operational lifetime are required. Here, we devised a wireless optoelectronic pseudocapacitor converting the optical energy to safe capacitive currents by dissociating the photogenerated excitons in the photovoltaic unit and effectively routing the holes to the supercapacitor electrode and the pseudocapacitive electrode-electrolyte interfacial layer of PEDOT:PSS for reversible faradic reactions. The biointerface showed high peak capacitive currents of ∼3 mA·cm-2 with total charge injection of ∼1 µC·cm-2 at responsivity of 30 mA·W-1, generating high photovoltages over 400 mV for the main eye photoreception colors of blue, green, and red. Moreover, modification of PEDOT:PSS controls the charging/discharging phases leading to rapid capacitive photoresponse of 50 µs and effective membrane depolarization at the single-cell level. The neural interface has a device lifetime of over 1.5 years in the aqueous environment and showed stability without significant performance decrease after sterilization steps. Our results demonstrate that adopting the pseudocapacitance phenomenon on organic photovoltaics paves an ultraefficient, safe, and robust way toward communicating with biological systems.

Plasmon-Coupled Photocapacitor Neuromodulators.

Efficient transduction of optical energy to bioelectrical stimuli is an important goal for effective communication with biological systems. For that, plasmonics has a significant potential via boosting the light-matter interactions. However, plasmonics has been primarily used for heat-induced cell stimulation due to membrane capacitance change (i.e., optocapacitance). Instead, here, we demonstrate that plasmonic coupling to photocapacitor biointerfaces improves safe and efficacious neuromodulating displacement charges for an average of 185% in the entire visible spectrum while maintaining the faradic currents below 1%. Hot-electron injection dominantly leads the enhancement of displacement current in the blue spectral window, and the nanoantenna effect is mainly responsible for the improvement in the red spectral region. The plasmonic photocapacitor facilitates wireless modulation of single cells at three orders of magnitude below the maximum retinal intensity levels, corresponding to one of the most sensitive optoelectronic neural interfaces. This study introduces a new way of using plasmonics for safe and effective photostimulation of neurons and paves the way toward ultrasensitive plasmon-assisted neurostimulation devices.