pp. 1303-1315
S&M1292 Research Paper of Special Issue https://doi.org/10.18494/SAM.2016.1398 Published: December 14, 2016 Performance Improvement of a Micro-stimulus Electrode for Retinal Prosthesis by Introducing a High-Performance Material and a Three-Dimensional Structure [PDF] Takumi Fujisawa, Toshihiko Noda, Megumi Hayashi, Ryo Kobe, Hiroyuki Tashiro, Hiroaki Takehara, Kiyotaka Sasagawa, Takashi Tokuda, Chung-Yu Wu, and Jun Ohta (Received May 2, 2016; Accepted August 9, 2016) Keywords: retinal prosthesis, stimulus electrode, iridium oxide, three-dimensional electrode, charge injection capacity
High-performance electrodes intended for retinal prosthesis were fabricated and evaluated. Iridium oxide (IrOx) was introduced as a high-performance material. A three-dimensional (3D) structure was also introduced to enlarge the electrode's surface area. We tried to improve the electrode performance by combining these approaches, even if the electrode was miniaturized. The effectiveness of IrOx was demonstrated through electrochemical evaluation by comparing it with Pt. IrOx showed 1.6–6 times higher performance for the injection of stimulus pulse current than Pt. The performance of the 3D electrode compared with a planar electrode was also evaluated. Accordingly, the 3D electrode showed 2–4 times higher performance than the planar electrode by surface area enlargement. An ex vivo validation of the stimulus performance was conducted to demonstrate its practical use. A fabricated electrode was implanted in an extracted pig eyeball and the electrochemical performance was evaluated. The fabricated electrode showed sufficient performance of the retinal stimulation, with a high margin of safety. The proposed approach was successfully demonstrated as a stimulus electrode candidate for use in next-generation retinal prosthesis.
Corresponding author: Toshihiko NodaCite this article Takumi Fujisawa, Toshihiko Noda, Megumi Hayashi, Ryo Kobe, Hiroyuki Tashiro, Hiroaki Takehara, Kiyotaka Sasagawa, Takashi Tokuda, Chung-Yu Wu, and Jun Ohta, Performance Improvement of a Micro-stimulus Electrode for Retinal Prosthesis by Introducing a High-Performance Material and a Three-Dimensional Structure, Sens. Mater., Vol. 28, No. 12, 2016, p. 1303-1315. |