Nanoengineering InP Quantum Dot-Based Photoactive Biointerfaces for Optical Control of Neurons
Onuralp Karatum, Mohammad Mohammadi Aria, Guncem Ozgun Eren, Erdost Yıldız, Rustamzhon Melikov, Shashi Bhushan Srivastava, Saliha Sürme, Itır Bakış Doğru, Houman Bahmani Jalali, Burak Ülgüt, Afsun Şahin, İbrahim Halil Kavaklı, Sedat Nizamoğlu
Abstract
Light-activated biointerfaces provide a non-genetic route for effective control of neural activity. InP quantum dots (QDs) have a high potential for such biomedical applications due to their uniquely tunable electronic properties, photostability, toxic-heavy-metal-free content, heterostructuring, and solution-processing ability. However, the effect of QD nanostructure and biointerface architecture on the photoelectrical cellular interfacing remained unexplored. Here, we unravel the control of the photoelectrical response of InP QD-based biointerfaces via nanoengineering from QD to device-level. At QD level, thin ZnS shell growth (∼0.65 nm) enhances the current level of biointerfaces over an order of magnitude with respect to only InP core QDs. At device-level, band alignment engineering allows for the bidirectional photoelectrochemical current generation, which enables light-induced temporally precise and rapidly reversible action potential generation and hyperpolarization on primary hippocampal neurons. Our findings show that nanoengineering QD-based biointerfaces hold great promise for next-generation neurostimulation devices.