Project description
Together but separate, ions and electrons join forces in innovative bioelectronics
Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) enable the brain to communicate with an external device and vice versa. Some do one or the other, and some both. In medicine, they are helping people with impaired neuromuscular function get their limbs moving. They can also help people use systems other than their own natural ones, or eventually perhaps help us pay better attention at work or stop depressive thoughts. The EU-funded MITICS project will develop innovative organic electronics for healthcare applications using ion transport in transistors and electron transport long-distance. By reducing signal loss and promoting efficient long-range electron movement, scientists will maximise responses to very small signals and foster less invasive BCIs.
Objective
MITICS will interface living systems with modern microelectronics creating major breakthroughs notably in healthcare. We target alternative materials, advanced processing know-how and insights in device architectures to reach the following main twofold objective: Develop high-gain (> 15) and low-power complementary circuits based on Organic ElectroChemical Transistors (OECTs) to be used as amplifying transducers and design ultra-conformable OECT arrays that mitigate losses in signal quality (signal-to-noise ratio > 30dB higher than conventional electrodes), enabling less invasive Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCIs).
To reach this overarching objective, we envision a radically-new science-enabled technology that rests on a completely novel material engineering approach combined with highly advanced characterization methods. We will take advantage of a unique molecular architecture strategy spatially separating ion- and electron-transport pathways to ensure volumetric ion injection and transport in order to optimize the uptake and release of ions in the transistor channel and to promote efficient, long-range, electronic charge transport so as to maximize the response of the transistors to very weak signals.
In contrast to field-effect transistors, where charge flows through a thin interfacial region, the identifying characteristic of OECTs I s that polymer doping occurs over the entire volume of the channel, thereby allowing for large modulations in drain current at low-gate voltages. We will seek for organic material architectures maximizing the electronic mobility volumetric capacitance, develop high-gain and low-power complementary circuits based on printed OECTs, and use these as amplifying transducers in the context of Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCIs) that mitigate losses in signal quality due to the dura, the skull and the scalp, thereby enabling less-invasive BCIs.
Fields of science
Keywords
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
RIA - Research and Innovation actionCoordinator
3001 Leuven
Belgium