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S&M2310 Research Paper https://doi.org/10.18494/SAM.2020.2903 Published: September 8, 2020 Sputtered Iridium Oxide as Electrode Material for Subretinal Stimulation [PDF] Jonas Haas, Ralf Rudorf, Maximilian Becker, Renate Daschner, Anna Drzyzga, Claus Burkhardt, and Alfred Stett (Received April 14, 2020; Accepted June 10, 2020) Keywords: electrical stimulation, sputtered iridium oxide, neural prosthesis, retinal implant, microelectrodes
The efficiency and safety of neuronal stimulation with implants strongly depend on the electrode material. Microelectrodes composed of iridium oxide are becoming increasingly important as they exhibit excellent charge injection capacity (CIC) as well as charge storage capacity (CSC). We present the development of a robust process for the fabrication of sputtered iridium oxide films (SIROF). This process has been used for the “RETINA IMPLANT Alpha AMS” for several years of subretinal stimulation. In this paper, we describe the full experimental investigation of the electrode material. The electrochemical and morphological properties were investigated by cyclic voltammetry (CV), electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS), voltage transient measurements, and focused ion beam-scanning electron microscopy (FIB-SEM). The implementation on the CMOS chip of the retinal prosthesis is presented. The deposition process window was investigated extensively. Major changes in process parameters lead to a difference in impedance of only 10% of the mean. Accelerated aging tests revealed a long-term stability of the electrodes of at least 10 years under conditions of use. The SIROF electrodes (diameter 30 µm) show low impedance (15.9 kΩ), excellent CSC (50.9 mC/cm2), and high CIC (4.2 mC/cm2). In summary, the robustness of the presented deposition process and the large process window enable the integration of high-quality SIROF microelectrodes in active implants and thus long-term stability in a wide range of safe electrical stimulation.
Corresponding author: Alfred StettThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Cite this article Jonas Haas, Ralf Rudorf, Maximilian Becker, Renate Daschner, Anna Drzyzga, Claus Burkhardt, and Alfred Stett, Sputtered Iridium Oxide as Electrode Material for Subretinal Stimulation, Sens. Mater., Vol. 32, No. 9, 2020, p. 2903-2918. |