ENCAPSULATION MATERIALS FOR NEURAL INTERFACE DEVICES

Neural interface devices have been developed for
neuroscience and neuroprosthetics applications to
record and stimulate nerve signals. Chronic use of
these devices is prevented by their lack of long-
term stability, due to device failure or immune
system responses.
Conformal, hermetic, biocompatible, and electrically
insulating coating materials that sustain chronic
implantation and guarantee stable recording or
stimulation are needed. Even though a large
selection of materials has been proposed and tested
for this purpose, to date, no material
presented in scientific literature has been
thoroughly characterized and qualified as a long-
term hermetic encapsulation material for silicon-
based neural interface devices.
In this work, hydrogenated amorphous silicon carbide
(a-SiCx:H) and Parylene-C films were investigated as
the encapsulation materials. The deposition
parameters and corresponding film properties were
explored and correlated with the encapsulation
characteristics.