Insulating Coating for Implant Devices & Ribbon Cables

用于生物医学植入物的柔性带状电缆和微电极的可靠、薄的绝缘屏障涂层的开发一直是一个重要的问题。我们的初步测试表明，使用旋涂聚酰亚胺涂层制造具有阻隔性能的柔性带状电缆是可行的，适合在活体应用中长期使用。这些测试使用了在柔性聚酰亚胺基板(Kapton H(R))上旋涂聚酰亚胺薄膜，在基板和涂层材料之间有金导体。在37摄氏度的等渗盐水溶液中连续暴露近18个月后，这些涂层仍具有优异的介电阻隔性能。气体等离子体聚合物涂层具有良好的附着力，已被用作各种常规聚合物薄膜的“底漆”。这些涂层也可以很容易地进行化学修饰，并已显示出提高了底层基质的生物相容性。用于长期植入物的绝缘涂层必须具有多年的良好附着力，并且必须具有生物相容性。在这项提案中，将开发气体等离子涂层与旋转式聚酰亚胺的组合，以进行可行性研究。我们将探索这种方法用于具有无与伦比的介电阻隔性能和生物兼容性的柔性植入物的可行性。拟议的商业应用：仅在美国就有大约2500万人接受了植入物。这些植入物中有很大一部分是电子设备或包含电子设备接口，而且还在不断增长。生物医学植入物和柔性互连电缆用于体内长期应用而不会引发炎症细胞反应，具有巨大的商业潜力。这些植入物和电缆必须用绝缘屏障涂层保护，以抵御生物流体的渗透。

The development of reliable thin, insulating barrier coatings for flexible ribbon cables and micro-electrodes used in biomedical implants has been a significant problem. Our preliminary tests have demonstrated the feasibility of using spin-on polyimide coatings for fabricating flexible ribbon cables with barrier properties suitable for long-term in Vivo applications. These tests used thin films of spin coated polyimides on flexible polyimide substrates (Kapton H(R)) with gold conductors between the substrate and coating materials. After almost 18 months of continuous exposure to isotonic saline solution at 37 degrees C, these coatings still show excellent dielectric barrier properties. Gas plasma polymer coatings provide excellent adhesion and have been used as "primer" layers for various conventional polymer films. These coatings can also be easily modified chemically and have shown to increase the biocompatibility of underlying substrates. Insulation coatings used in long term implants have to exhibit excellent adhesion for many years and also have to be biocompatible. In this proposal the combination of gas plasma coatings with spin-on polyimides will be developed for feasibility studies. We will explore feasibility of this approach for encapsulation for flexible implants with unsurpassed dielectric barrier properties as well as biocompatibility. PROPOSED COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS: About 25 million people in the US alone have implants. A significant and growing portion of these implants are electronic or contain electronic device interfaces. Biomedical implants and flexible interconnecting cables used in long-term in vivo applications without triggering inflammatory cell responses have a great commercial potential. These implants and cables have to be protected with insulating barrier coatings to resist the penetration of biological fluids.