Achievement

Carlos Dorta-Quinones, an IGERT trainee in the Apsel group at Cornell, has developed a low power ADC (analog to digital converter) tailored to the application of real-time electrochemical detection and worked with Lindau group IGERT trainees to apply this circuitry to their studies of extremely low quantities of cerebral dopamine. These studies aim to understand the underlying mechanisms of neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson's disease. This circuit/system is unique in that it utilizes the periodic nature of the excitation function used in this experiment to dramatically increase the resolution at low powers critical to enable in-vivo behavioral experiments. A dedicated low power 8bit ADC consuming approximately 10uW can now deliver measurements with a resolution of almost 14 bits as required in these experiments. This work will be presented at the IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems in May 2011.