Patterning of Silicone Rubber for Micro-Electrode Array Fabrication

Author

Schuettler, Martin ; Henle, Christian ; Ordonez, Juan ; Suaning, Gregg J. ; Lovell, Nigel H. ; Stieglitz, Thomas

Author_Institution

Dept. of Microsystems Eng., Freiburg Univ.

fYear

2007

fDate

2-5 May 2007

Firstpage

53

Lastpage

56

Abstract

Five methods of micro-patterning silicone rubber, (polydimethylsiloxane, PDMS) are reviewed. Three of the methods are experimentally evaluated in order to find the most suitable process parameters to expose electrode sites and contact pads of PDMS-embedded platinum structures for fabricating micro-electrode arrays. Rated by applicability, type of PDMS involved (implantable-grade required), achievable aspect ratio (AR) and minimum feature size (FS), the feasibility of two methods was demonstrated: laser-ablation, using a Nd:YAG laser (AR = 5.3, FS > 100 mum) and dry etching using a reactive ion etcher (AR = 10, FS > 10 mum).

Keywords

laser ablation; laser beam etching; microelectrodes; silicone rubber; sputter etching; PDMS-embedded platinum structures; dry etching; laser ablation; microelectrode array fabrication; polydimethylsiloxane; reactive ion etcher; silicone rubber micropatterning; Biological materials; Dry etching; Electrodes; Fabrication; Laser ablation; Lithography; Rubber; Shape control; Sputter etching; Wet etching;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Neural Engineering, 2007. CNE '07. 3rd International IEEE/EMBS Conference on

Conference_Location

Kohala Coast, HI

Print_ISBN

1-4244-0792-3

Electronic_ISBN

1-4244-0792-3

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/CNE.2007.369610

Filename

4227215