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ABSTRACT The use of nanophotonics to rapidly and precisely reconfigure light beams for the optical stimulation of neurons in vivo has remained elusive. Here we report the design and
fabrication of an implantable silicon-based probe that can switch and route multiple optical beams to stimulate identified sets of neurons across cortical layers and simultaneously record
the produced spike patterns. Each switch in the device consists of a silicon nitride waveguide structure that can be rapidly (<20 μs) reconfigured by electrically tuning the phase of
light. By using an eight-beam probe, we show in anaesthetized mice that small groups of single neurons can be independently stimulated to produce multineuron spike patterns at
sub-millisecond precision. We also show that a probe integrating co-fabricated electrical recording sites can simultaneously optically stimulate and electrically measure deep-brain neural
activity. The technology is scalable, and it allows for beam focusing and steering and for structured illumination via beam shaping. The high-bandwidth optical-stimulation capacity of the
device might facilitate the probing of the spatiotemporal neural codes underlying behaviour. Access through your institution Buy or subscribe This is a preview of subscription content,
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about institutional subscriptions * Read our FAQs * Contact customer support SIMILAR CONTENT BEING VIEWED BY OTHERS IMPLANTABLE NANOPHOTONIC NEURAL PROBES FOR INTEGRATED PATTERNED
PHOTOSTIMULATION AND ELECTROPHYSIOLOGICAL RECORDING Article Open access 05 April 2025 IMPLANTABLE SILICON NEURAL PROBES WITH NANOPHOTONIC PHASED ARRAYS FOR SINGLE-LOBE BEAM STEERING Article
Open access 18 December 2024 IMPLANTABLE PHOTONIC NEURAL PROBES WITH OUT-OF-PLANE FOCUSING GRATING EMITTERS Article Open access 15 June 2024 DATA AVAILABILITY The main data supporting the
results in this study are available within the paper and its Supplementary Information. The raw and analysed datasets generated during the study are too large to be publicly shared, but they
are available for research purposes from the corresponding authors on reasonable request. CODE AVAILABILITY The code packages MClust 3.5 and CellBase R2013a are openly available at
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Download references ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This work was supported by the National Science Foundation Brain EAGER (grant no. 1611090) and was performed in part at the Cornell NanoScale Facility, a
member of the National Nanotechnology Coordinated Infrastructure, which is supported by the National Science Foundation (grant no. ECCS-1542081). Back-end fabrication processing was done in
part at the Advanced Science Research Center NanoFabrication Facility at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. A.M. was funded by a National Science Foundation Graduate
Research Fellowship (grant no. DGE-1144153). X.J. acknowledges the China Scholarship Council for financial support. AUTHOR INFORMATION Author notes * These authors contributed equally:
Aseema Mohanty, Qian Li. AUTHORS AND AFFILIATIONS * Department of Electrical Engineering, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA Aseema Mohanty, Mohammad Amin Tadayon, Samantha P. Roberts,
Gaurang R. Bhatt, Euijae Shim, Xingchen Ji, Jaime Cardenas, Steven A. Miller & Michal Lipson * School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA Aseema
Mohanty & Xingchen Ji * Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Cold Spring Harbor, New York, NY, USA Qian Li & Adam Kepecs * Department of Neuroscience, Washington University in St. Louis,
St. Louis, MO, USA Qian Li & Adam Kepecs * Institute of Optics, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, USA Jaime Cardenas * Department of Psychiatry, Washington University in St. Louis,
St. Louis, MO, USA Adam Kepecs Authors * Aseema Mohanty View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Qian Li View author publications You can also
search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Mohammad Amin Tadayon View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Samantha P. Roberts View author
publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Gaurang R. Bhatt View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Euijae Shim
View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Xingchen Ji View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar *
Jaime Cardenas View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Steven A. Miller View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed
Google Scholar * Adam Kepecs View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Michal Lipson View author publications You can also search for this author
inPubMed Google Scholar CONTRIBUTIONS A.M. designed and tested the performance of the nanophotonic probe. Q.L. performed the animal surgery, histological analysis and electrophysiology data
analysis. A.M. and Q.L. developed and conducted the in vivo electrophysiology experiment with the assistance of M.A.T. and S.P.R. A.M. fabricated the nanophotonic probe with the assistance
of X.J. and J.C. S.P.R. developed and fabricated the integrated recording electrode process. E.S. and G.R.B. assisted with back-end fabrication processing and electrical packaging,
respectively. A.M. and M.A.T. developed the fibre packaging for in vivo experiments. S.A.M. developed the software interface for optical characterization. A.M., Q.L., M.A.T., A.K. and M.L.
designed the experiment and discussed the results. A.M., Q.L. and M.A.T. designed and built the experimental setup. A.K. and M.L. supervised the project. A.M., Q.L., A.K. and M.L. prepared
the manuscript. M.A.T., S.P.R., G.R.B., E.S., X.J., J.C. and S.A.M. edited the manuscript. CORRESPONDING AUTHORS Correspondence to Adam Kepecs or Michal Lipson. ETHICS DECLARATIONS COMPETING
INTERESTS A.M., Q.L., M.A.T., X.J., A.K. and M.L. are listed as inventors in a patent application related to this work, filed by Columbia University. The remaining authors declare no
competing interests. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION PUBLISHER’S NOTE Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION Supplementary discussion, figures and references. REPORTING SUMMARY SUPPLEMENTARY VIDEO 1 Independent illumination of eight spots with low
cross-talk. RIGHTS AND PERMISSIONS Reprints and permissions ABOUT THIS ARTICLE CITE THIS ARTICLE Mohanty, A., Li, Q., Tadayon, M.A. _et al._ Reconfigurable nanophotonic silicon probes for
sub-millisecond deep-brain optical stimulation. _Nat Biomed Eng_ 4, 223–231 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41551-020-0516-y Download citation * Received: 01 May 2018 * Accepted: 13 January
2020 * Published: 12 February 2020 * Issue Date: February 2020 * DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41551-020-0516-y SHARE THIS ARTICLE Anyone you share the following link with will be able to
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