• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.199-204
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• 2009

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.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2002.11a
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• pp.257-259
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• 2002

In investigating the characteristics of a neural network, the use of planar microelectrode array shows several advantages over normal intracellular recording[1]. A transparent indium tin oxide(ITO) multi-electrode array(MEA) was fabricated and its top surface was insulated with photodefinable polyimide(HD-8001) except the exposed area for interfacing between the ITO electrodes and the neuronal cells. The exposed ITO electrodes were platinized in order to reduce the impedance between the electrodes and electrolyte. The one-minute platinization with $0.99nA/{\mu}m^2$ current density reduced the average impedance of the electrodes from $2.5M\Omega\;to\;90k\Omega$ at 1kHz in normal ringer solution. Cardiac cells were cultured on this MEA as a pilot study before neuron culture. The signals detected by the platinized electrodes had larger amplitudes and improved signal to noise ratio(SNR) compared to non-platinized electrodes. It is clear that microelectrodes need to have lower impedance to make reliable extracellular recordings, and thus platinization is essential part of MEA fabrication. Burst spike of cultured olfactory bulb was also detected with the MEA having platinized electrodes.