Towards bi-directional electro-optic neuronal interfaces

This paper presents an investigation into a novel electro-optic device for bi-directional brain- machine interface (BMI) by using both a chiral smectic C* liquid crystal to sense neuronal signals and the photovoltaic effect to stimulate neuronal tissues. By leveraging both the optical and electrical domains, this new electro-optic device can achieve high density of channel count and we have so far demonstrated up to 323 such channels. We focus here on tissue stimulation by adding a photovoltaic PN junction into the LC sensing structure described elsewhere to achieve a full bi-directional neuronal interface.