Optogenetics Control of the Sciatic Nerves with Injectable GaN μ-ILED

Light-emitting diode (LED) technologies can be used in many fields such as material science, chemical engineering, and bio medical engineering. There are two kinds of LEDs: organic LED (OLED) and inorganic LED (ILED). Although there are advantages of OLED (they are lightweight, flexible, and scalable), they also have disadvantages (they are toxic and easily oxidize). On the other hand, ILED technologies have high performance, high efficiency, robustness, and long life times, so they are lightweight, durable, and compact in design. In our work, we used a micro-scale GaN inorganic light-emitting diode on a flexible substrate for biomedical application, especially optogenetics. Optogenetics has been used for a combination of techniques from optics and genetics to control the activities of individual neurons. For this purpose, we have developed implantable LEDs which can be attached on the static nerve of the mouse. We fabricated this thin LED device using various equipment, such as spinners, a mask aligners, a reactive ion etching (RIE), and a glove box. We successfully implanted our flexible ILED device into the target nerve to control a leg of the animal without a brain signals. There was some disconnection because the current passivation was not perfect, so we are doing some experiment with the stretchable LED devices. Lastly, we hope that we will solve the present problem, and our device will be used for assisting people with disabled legs.unpublishednot peer reviewedU of I OnlyUndergraduate senior thesis not recommended for open acces