Anoop C. Patil

This editorial draws attention to a major issue in photonics: important research software is often hidden, undocumented, and lost over time, making results hard to reproduce. The rise of AI-generated code increases this problem by adding more ‘black box’ systems. To address this, J. Phys. Photonics is introducing Software Articles, a new article type allowing researchers to publish, validate, and share their code as formal scientific outputs. This initiative aims to promote transparency, reproducibility, and proper credit for developers. Open and peer-reviewed software helps the community verify results, reduce duplication of effort, and build lasting tools, ensuring that computational methods become reliable, accessible, and integral to scientific progress.

Silk fibroin holds promise a new generation of soft bioelectronics due to its excellent biocompatibility, tailorable biodegradability, and an impressive set of mechanical properties. Silk can be expressed in different material forms, providing many options for integrating silk with implantable sensors and devices. So far, silk has mainly driven the development of resorbable interfaces for in vivo applications. However, the pursuit of nontransient (water‐stable) silk bioelectronics is interdisciplinary, requiring unconventional techniques for integrating silk with thin sensing and conducting materials in a non‐resorbable package. This convergence of need, know‐how, and the potential impact on implantable applications point to the huge potential of silk in refashioning the field of bionic links. This report begins with a general overview of the bionic link, defined as the electronic link between the biological (neural) tissue and the interface electronics. Then, the prominent trends in the use of silk fibroin for designing bionic links (inclusive of transient sensors and devices, and soft conformal nontransient tissue interfaces), key fabrication strategies, and applications are analyzed, followed by a highlight of the material aspects driving the maturity of nontransient silk fibroin technology for implantable bioelectronics.

Electrodes serve as the first critical interface to the biological organ system. In neuroprosthetic applications, for example, electrodes interface to the tissue for either signal recording or tissue stimulation. In this review, we consider electrodes for recording neural activity. Recording electrodes serve as wiretaps into the neural tissues, providing readouts of electrical activity. These signals give us valuable insights into the organization and functioning of the nervous system. The recording interfaces have also shown promise in aiding treatment of motor and sensory disabilities caused by neurological disorders. Recent advances in fabrication technology have generated wide interest in creating tiny, high-density electrode interfaces for neural tissues. An ideal electrode should be small enough and be able to achieve reliable and conformal integration with the structures of the nervous system. As a result, the existing electrode designs are being shrunk and packed to form small form factor interfaces to tissue. Here, an overview of the historic and state-of-the-art electrode technologies for recording neural activity is presented first with a focus on their development road map. The fact that the dimensions of recording electrode sites are being scaled down from micron to submicron scale to enable dense interfaces is appreciated. The current trends in recording electrode technologies are then reviewed. Current and future considerations in electrode design, including the use of inorganic nanostructures and biologically inspired or biocomapatible materials are discussed, along with an overview of the applications of flexible materials and transistor transduction schemes. Finally, we detail the major technical challenges facing chronic use of reliable recording electrode technology.