Lecture of "Carbon nanotube based devices for neuronal interfacing applications"

Lecture of "Carbon nanotube based devices for neuronal interfacing applications"

 TOPIC:

ComponentsCarbon nanotube based devices for neuronal interfacing applications

 LECTURER:

Prof. Yael Hanein 

Professor of Tel-Aviv University, Isarel

9:00am, 19 Monday 2011 (Monday)

 LOCATION:

 ABSTRACT:

Electronic devices for retinal and brain implant are currently being developed by several research teams.　 The feasibility to create such devices rests in the ability to produce proper interfacing between the chip and the biological system. Extensive research, conducted over the last several years, demonstrated that Nanotechnology can help making better bio-materials for effective interfacing between nerve cells and electronic chips. Using carbon nanotubes, we have been able to produce highly effective neuro micro-electrodes suited for high efficacy recording and stimulation. Using dissociated retinas we were able to show that carbon nanotube electrodes can record neuronal activity with signal to noise ratio as high as 75 and to achieve stimulation at 1 nC charge injection.  Through innovative nano and micro-fabrication methods, we have also developed a flexible, Polydimethylsiloxane based system with carbon nanotube micro-electrodes. This system exhibit excellent electrochemistry and is ideally suited for neuro-prosthetic applications. Recent efforts to realize photo-sensitive electrodes based on carbon nanotubes will be also presented.

 Bio:

Prof. Yael Hanein received the B.Sc. degree in physics from Tel-Aviv University, Israel, and the M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in physics from the Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel. In 2003, she completed a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Electrical Engineering Department and a research associate position at the Physics Department at the University of Washington, Seattle and joined the faculty of Tel-Aviv University, at Tel-Aviv, Israel. She is currently an Associate Professor at the School of Electrical Engineering at Tel-Aviv University and a VP at  nanoRetina, an Israeli startup company.  Prof. Hanein’s research activity concerns with the development of electronic nano devices, in particular devices designed to interface with brain cells and to record their activity.