A physically transient form of silicon electronics.

A remarkable feature of modern silicon electronics is its ability to remain physically invariant, almost indefinitely for practical purposes. Although this characteristic is a hallmark of applications of integrated circuits that exist today, there might be opportunities for systems that offer the opposite behavior, such as implantable devices that function for medically useful time frames but then completely disappear via resorption by the body. We report a set of materials, manufacturing schemes, device components, and theoretical design tools for a silicon-based complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technology that has this type of transient behavior, together with integrated sensors, actuators, power supply systems, and wireless control strategies. An implantable transient device that acts as a programmable nonantibiotic bacteriocide provides a system-level example.

Dissolvable films of silk fibroin for ultrathin conformal bio-integrated electronics.

Electronics that are capable of intimate, non-invasive integration with the soft, curvilinear surfaces of biological tissues offer important opportunities for diagnosing and treating disease and for improving brain/machine interfaces. This article describes a material strategy for a type of bio-interfaced system that relies on ultrathin electronics supported by bioresorbable substrates of silk fibroin. Mounting such devices on tissue and then allowing the silk to dissolve and resorb initiates a spontaneous, conformal wrapping process driven by capillary forces at the biotic/abiotic interface. Specialized mesh designs and ultrathin forms for the electronics ensure minimal stresses on the tissue and highly conformal coverage, even for complex curvilinear surfaces, as confirmed by experimental and theoretical studies. In vivo, neural mapping experiments on feline animal models illustrate one mode of use for this class of technology. These concepts provide new capabilities for implantable and surgical devices.

Infochemistry and infofuses for the chemical storage and transmission of coded information.

This article describes a self-powered system that uses chemical reactions--the thermal excitation of alkali metals--to transmit coded alphanumeric information. The transmitter (an "infofuse") is a strip of the flammable polymer nitrocellulose patterned with alkali metal ions; this pattern encodes the information. The wavelengths of 2 consecutive pulses of light represent each alphanumeric character. While burning, infofuses transmit a sequence of pulses (at 5-20 Hz) of atomic emission that correspond to the sequence of metallic salts (and therefore to the encoded information). This system combines information technology and chemical reactions into a new area--"infochemistry"--that is the first step toward systems that combine sensing and transduction of chemical signals with multicolor transmission of alphanumeric information.

Erratum: "Silicon electronics on silk as a path to bioresorbable, implantable devices" [Appl. Phys. Lett. 95, 133701 (2009)].

[This corrects the article on p. 133701 in vol. 95.].

Silicon electronics on silk as a path to bioresorbable, implantable devices.

Many existing and envisioned classes of implantable biomedical devices require high performance electronicssensors. An approach that avoids some of the longer term challenges in biocompatibility involves a construction in which some parts or all of the system resorbs in the body over time. This paper describes strategies for integrating single crystalline silicon electronics, where the silicon is in the form of nanomembranes, onto water soluble and biocompatible silk substrates. Electrical, bending, water dissolution, and animal toxicity studies suggest that this approach might provide many opportunities for future biomedical devices and clinical applications.

Electronic and molecular structure of aminimides (1-acyl-2,2,2-trimethyldiazan-2-ium-1-ide). 1. Formaminimide (HCON- N+ Me3).

The electronic structure and geometries of (Z)- and (E)-H-CON- N+(CH3)3 have been examined at two levels of theory: B3LYP (basis sets 6-311+G(d,p), 6-311++G(d,p), and 6-311G(3df,3pd)) and MP2(full)/6-311++G(d,p). The (Z) conformation about the C(O)-N(-) bond is thermodynamically preferred over the (E) configuration. Natural bond orbital calculation locates one lone pair of the N- in the HOMO, which is the p(z) natural hybrid orbital (perpendicular to the O=CN- N+ plane). The second lone pair (of lower energy) of N- occupies the HOMO-3, which is the natural hybrid orbital sp(1.12) (sp(1.01) for the (E) conformation, sp(1.74) in the rotational transition state). The carbonyl pi bond is the HOMO-2. The charge-transfer ability of the negative nitrogen in H-CON- N+ (CH3)3 is more powerful than that of the neutral amidic nitrogen in dimethylformamide. The following facts convincingly sustain this view: (1) the higher rotational barrier (stronger C-N(-) bond) in the case of H-CON- N+ (CH3)3, (2) natural resonance theory analysis predicts almost equal weights for the (Z)-H-C(=O)N- N+ (CH3)3 and the (Z)-H-C(O-)=NN+ (CH3)3 canonical resonance structures whereas the weight of the HCON(CH3)2 structure is almost twice as large as that of HC(O-)=N+ (CH3)2, and (3) the second-order perturbation stabilization, as a result of the donor (N-)/acceptor (carbonyl) interaction, is 101.3 kcal/mol for H-CON- N+ (CH3)3 and only 64.4 kcal/mol for dimethylformamide.