United States of America As Represented by the Secretary of the Air Force

Bionic Eye Technologies, Inc.

Cornell Research Foundation Inc.

Case Western Reserve University

The United States Government As Represented by the Department of Veterans Affairs

Douglas Bourne Shire

Michael A Parker

Paul David Swanson

Chung L Tang

Marcus D Gingerich

Christian A Zorman

Katherine M Bogie

William Drohan

Stuart I Libby

James S Kimmet

Patricia I Wong

Chung C Tang

Lauren N Ayton

David Keicher

Richard J Michalak

A method and apparatus of electrode interfaces for stimulating neurons and nerve cells that provides micro-fabricated electrode interfaces configured for conformal placement adjacent to neuron, nerves and neural tissue to thereby allow the neuron, nerves and neural tissue to grow around the electrode interfaces and allow for the creation depending on configuration of local or far electrical fields and current flows to stimulate them.

Micro-fabricated electrode arrays with flexible substrate for highly charge-efficient and selective stimulation of nerve tissue

Provided are devices and methods for providing a flexible implantable tissue stimulator. A flexible implantable tissue stimulator can be use in a variety of medical/surgical procedures, and therapeutic interventions, such as musculoskeletal stimulation therapy. The flexible implantable tissue stimulator can be implanted via a minimally invasive procedure and comprises a biocompatible flexible construction that enables it to conform to a variety of implantation orientations and biological conditions. The flexible implantable tissue can provide programmable biphasic electrical stimulation to impaired tissue, such as a gluteal muscle.

Flexible implantable tissue stimulator and methods of making and using same

An apparatus for implanting electrodes in neural tissue to connect a neural modulator to the tissue to send and receive signals from the neural tissue and a method for implanting the electrodes.

Method and apparatus for minimally-invasive implantation of electrodes and flexible, thin-film substrates into cortical or sub-cortical structures of the brain

The present invention demodulates a FM, WM or AM optical input beam, amplifies the signal impressed on the beam, and then modulates without intervening electronics the signal amplitude of an output beam. The apparatus can be made from any semiconductor laser, including edge-emitting lasers and VCSELs. Light transmitted through the waveguide (the &ldquo;control beam&rdquo;) interacts with the carrier population of the laser, reducing the available gain and thereby the output intensity. The present invention has three key advantages: (i) a FM control beam produces an amplitude-modulated output beam from the main-laser, (ii) the amplitude of the AM beam depends directly on the differential gain &part;G/&part;&ohgr;, and (iii) the apparatus and method provides gain for all LOGiC devices. The present invention works with available and future semiconductor lasers, including those emitting in the blue as well as those operating at 670, 850, 980, 1300, and 1500 nm. The 1300 and 1500 nm lasers are of particular importance for fiber communications.

Demodulating and amplifying systems of lasers with optical gain control (DAS-LOGiC)

The Vertical-cavity-surface-emitting Lasers with Optical Gain Control (V-LOGIC) form a family of integrated optical smart pixels for interconnect and signal processing applications. V-LOGIC devices consist of Vertical Cavity Surface Emitting Lasers (VCSELs) and In-Plane Lasers. (IPL) with cross-coupled cavities. The devices can operate in a digital, an analog or a hybrid mode. The IPLs either fully quench or modulate the VCSEL depending on whether the device is used in the digital or analog mode. In the Hybrid mode, one IPL serves as an enable input while another one modulates the VCSEL. The V-LOGIC devices can operate significantly faster than modulated lasers since, for the quenching phenomena, (1) the VCSEL carrier population is essentially constant and (2) the quenching is all-optical and does not require intermediate drive electronics. The family of devices solve the leading outstanding problems in optical switching and interconnect technologies. In particular, they form the basis for multiplanar optical signal processors, N.times.M optical routers, ATM and packet switching fabrics, and multi-chip modules.

Vertical cavity surface emitting lasers with optical gain control

Optical laser amplifier devices are formed integrally with spontaneous emission filters. The filtering function is accomplished by a laser amplifier whose output is employed to quench the signal generated by a laser. The quenching of the laser is performed in direct proportion to the stimulated emission component of the laser amplifier output signal. Since the stimulated emission component represents the output signal minus any spontaneous emission noise, the output signal generated by the laser is an amplified, inverted version of the input signal without the noise components. In the preferred embodiments, optical waveguides are employed to form the laser amplifier and the laser is either a horizontal cavity edge emitting laser or a vertical cavity surface emitting laser (VCSEL).

Optical laser amplifier combined with a spontaneous emission filter

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Ithaca, NY, United States of America

Douglas Bourne Shire