Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research (대한의용생체공학회:의공학회지)

The Korean Society of Medical and Biological Engineering (대한의용생체공학회)
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Highly Efficient Cold Sputtered Iridium Oxide Films for Polyimide based Neural Stimulation Electrodes

  • Kim, Shin-Ae (School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Seoul National University) ;
  • Kim, Eui-Tae (School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Seoul National University) ;
  • Kim, Sung-June (School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Seoul National University)
  • Published : 2009.06.30
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Abstract

Iridium oxide films (IROFs) have been extensively studied as a material for electrical stimulation of neurons, as iridium oxide has higher charge storage capacity than other metal films. More recently, sputtered iridium oxide film (SIROF) has been studied, because it can be made more conveniently than activated iridium oxide film (AIROF). Typically, the SIROFs are grown at temperatures from 400 to 600 $^{\circ}C$. However, such high temperatures cannot be used when the iridium oxide (IrOx) film is to be deposited on a flexible polymer material, such as polyimide. In this paper, we show that we can still obtain excellent characteristics in SIROFs grown without heating (cold SIROF), by optimizing the growth conditions. We show that the oxygen flow rate is a critical parameter for controlling the surface properties of a cold SIROF. At an oxygen flow rate of 12 seem, the cold SIROF exhibited a charge storage capacity (CSC) of 60 mC/cm$^2$, which is comparable to or better than other published values for iridium oxide films including heated SIROFs. The film produced under these conditions also had the minimum impedance value of all cold SIROFs deposited for this study. A stability test and biocompatibility test also demonstrated the superiority of the optimized cold SIROF.

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References

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