Developing SiC materials for long-lifetime, biocompatible neural interfacing

Abstract :
Silicon carbide is a wide bandgap semiconductor with promising applications in biotechnology. It has demonstrated excellent chemical inertness and can be fabricated in variants ranging from highly conductive to insulating. As part of a project to develop and test all-SiC neural interfaces with state-of-the-art biocompatibility and lifetime, various aspects of SiC have been characterized and optimized as a material for neural interfaces. This includes improving conductivity and charge delivery, ensuring isolation between microelectrode array channels, and varying deposition conditions to obtain low-stress, high-resistance, and maximally chemically-inert structural and passivation material. This seminar will cover the development of characterization techniques, the results of material testing and optimization, and early device characterization results in the context of neural interface development.