Neural interfaces offer promising solutions for restoring function in neurological conditions, while also advancing our ability to study the brain, the peripheral nervous system, and the autonomic nervous system. Our vision is to develop scalable and precise neurotechnologies that enable cell-type-specific sensing and stimulation across broader spatial areas, while minimising unnecessary interaction with surrounding tissue.
Our projects focus on bridging the gap between high-performance devices and the practical requirements of long-term rehabilitative and therapeutic applications. This vision is realized through an interdisciplinary approach that combines fundamental stimulation strategies, low-power integrated circuit design, advanced packaging techniques, adaptive algorithms, and careful consideration of surgical workflows.
To ensure these interfaces are both scalable and safe for chronic implantation, our research focuses on miniaturisation to the millimetre scale. Reducing the physical footprint of the implant is essential for minimising surgical invasiveness and improving device integration. We leverage CMOS technologies to achieve this, focusing our integrated circuit design on balancing low power consumption with high-resolution, dense sensing and high-specificity modulation of neural activity, alongside the development of wireless power and data transfer, to support efficient operation within the body’s strict thermal and energy constraints.
Robust operation of implantable microsystems requires that devices maintainfunctionality within the body’s chemical and physiological environment. Ensuring long-term reliability through packaging and encapsulation strategies that mitigate moisture ingress, corrosion, and interfacial degradation in miniaturised CMOS devices is therefore a central focus. Our work investigates these failure mechanisms, including through accelerated ageing studies that inform the design of durable, non-hermetic barrier layers. By developing polymer encapsulation approaches and modular interconnects, we aim to establish stable, chronic interfaces between the device and neural tissue, supporting the translation of scalable, wireless neural implants into clinical application.
Key Areas of Research
- Precise and Selective Neuromodulation: Utilising strategies such as waveform-dependent stimulation, optogenetics and temporal interference to achieve high spatial and cell-type specificity with the goals of improving therapeutic targeting and reducing side effects.
- Microelectronics: Designing CMOS circuits with system-level codesign considerationsfor low-noise, low-power signal acquisition, conditioning, digitisation, and transmission, as well as neural stimulation.
- Autonomous Closed-Loop Systems: Developing hardware-efficient architectures for real-time on-chip signal processing and biomarker extraction, allowing devices to adapt therapy based on physiological feedback.
- System Integration & Encapsulation: Translating chip-level designs into integrated implantable systems, including the development of flexible neural probes to enable precise interfacing with the nervous system, and investigating polymer-based barrier systems alongside accelerated ageing protocols to ensure stable, chronic operation.
- Translational Tools & Reliability: Applying bioimpedance monitoring techniques, both within implantable devices to track tissue response and device–tissue interface stability over time, and within surgical tools to assist surgeons during implantation.
