CISE Seminar: Sunwoo Lee, Nanyang Technological University

Sub-Nanoliter Tetherless Microsystem for Chronic Neural Recording Opto-electrical integration on CMOS can enable a unique class of autonomous microsystems for physiological monitoring. Sunwoo will discuss one such example, a micro-scale opto-electronic tetherless electrode (MOTE), that he has designed and built for tetherless neural recording. The MOTE is powered and communicates optically through a vertically integrated AlGaAs micro-scale light emitting diode (µLED), eliminating the needs for a battery or a RF coil; the MOTE is smaller than a human hair (~70µm × 20µm × 370µm), weighs about one 1 µg (cf. a grain of sand is about 670 µg), and can function inside a mouse brain over a year. Such minimally invasive and chronic physiological monitoring microsystem can provide an effective means for chronic studies inside various animal models as well as organoids. He will delve into the unique challenges and considerations in developing such heterogeneous systems in terms of device fabrication, circuit design, integration, and manipulation, and conclude the talk with how the heterogeneously integrated CMOS can serve as a future cell-scale bioimplants platform. Sunwoo Lee (Member, IEEE) received a B.S. degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Cornell University in 2010, and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from Columbia University in 2012 and 2016 respectively, working on graphene synthesis and graphene-based nano-electro-mechanical systems for signal processing and sensing applications. In 2016, he joined the Molnar Group in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Cornell University as a post-doctoral researcher (and later research associate and lecturer), where he worked on heterogeneously integrated CMOS for physiological monitoring and high-speed wirelines. In 2023, he joined the Electrical and Electronic Engineering Department at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore as a Nanyang Assistant Professor. Faculty Host: Tianyu Wang Student Host: Chae Woo Lim