Optogenetic Light Focusing System Receives 2021 IEEE SSCS-Brain Best Paper Award Honorable Mention!

Cem Yalcin’s paper at the 2021 International Solid-State Circuits Conference on “A MEMS-Based Dynamic Light Focusing System for Single-Cell Precision in Optogenetics” received one of two honorable mentions cited for the 2021 SSCS-Brain Best Paper Award. The recipients were announced in the Winter 2022 issue of the IEEE Solid-State Circuits Magazine. Read more about the award and paper here!

C Yalcin, NT Ersaro, G Bocchetti, MM Ghanbari, N Antipa, SF Alamouti, L Waller, D Lopez, and R Muller, “A MEMS-based Dynamic Light Focusing System for Single-cell Precision in Optogenetics,” Proc. of the IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC), Feb. 2021.

Abstract: The settling time of axial(Z) focusing elements has become a critical bottleneck in scan-based optogenetics systems. Alternative high-speed technologies either operate in resonant mode, have poor efficiency or come with impractical drive requirements. We present a system composed of a MEMS device and an ASIC that has >180x the speed of state-of-the-art tunable lenses and 10x higher efficiency for 10x lower power consumption than other chip-scale high-speed alternatives.