Towards Long-Term Stable Polyimide-Based Flexible Electrical Insulation for Chronically Implanted Neural Electrodes.

ABSTRACT: For chronic applications of flexible neural implants, e.g., intracortical probes, the flexible substrate material has to encapsulate the electrical conductors with a long-term stability against the saline environment of the neural tissue. The biocompatible polymer polyimide is often used for this purpose. Due to its chemical inertness, the adhesion between two polyimide layers is, however, a challenge, which can lead to delamination and, finally, to short circuits. The state-of-the-art method to improve the adhesion strength is activating the polyimide surface using oxygen reactive ion etching (O2 RIE). However, the influence of the process variations (etching time, bias power) on the long-term stability is still unclear. Therefore, we establish a test method, where the aging of a gold int

SUBMITTER: Schander A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8619170 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature