"Establishment of a reliable bi directional communication channel between the nervous system of a freely behaving vertebrate and the external environment is important for the treatment of neurological diseases and events like spinal cord injury, stroke and traumatic major amputations. Optogenetics, which uses light stimulation to control the excitation and inhibition of action potentials in genetically modified neurons. However, conventional methods like tethered optical fiber impedes the subject from moving freely and poor spatial resolution of other methods limits their functionality. A light-stimulating interface with sufficient light intensity that also allows free behavior of the experiment subject is imperative. In response to meet these challenges, monolithic multichannel micro LED arrays have been fabricated using less expensive reactive ion etching. These LED arrays could be surgically implanted on the cortex of an animal subject to stimulate light in vivo without hindering the animal's free behavior. Annealing was performed to improve the performance of the LED's. These arrays demonstrated sufficient light intensity that is required for genetically modified neuron activation. The fabricated LED's showed lower heat dissipation, which reduces the risk of impairing the neurons. The results of the RIE etching process, electrical and optical performance of the fabricated LED arrays were also characterized."--Page ii.
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