Easy-to-prepare assembly array of tungsten microelectrodes

• Published in: IEEE transactions on biomedical engineering Vol. 52; no. 5; pp. 952 - 956
• Main Authors: Takahashi, H., Suzurikawa, J., Nakao, M., Mase, F., Kaga, K.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States IEEE 01.05.2005; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Action Potentials - physiology; Animals; Assembly; Auditory Cortex - physiology; Electrodes, Implanted; Electroencephalography - instrumentation; Electroencephalography - methods; Electrophysiology; Equipment Design; Equipment Failure Analysis; Evoked Potentials, Auditory - physiology; Glass; microelectrode array; Microelectrodes; Micromachining; neural interface; neural probe; Neural prosthesis; neuroprosthetics; Probes; Process design; Rats; Rats, Wistar; Sandblasting; Shape; Tungsten
• ISSN: 0018-9294; 1558-2531
• DOI: 10.1109/TBME.2005.845224

This paper provides a detailed process flow for fabricating an easy-to-prepare, inexpensive, dense array of tungsten microelectrodes. We designed the process flow to minimize routine tasks by separating an initial preparation of a master mold from a routine preparation of substrate replication, array assembly and tip processing. Sandblast processing first produced a glass mold with a pattern of a series of protruding lines at a requested interval of a few hundred micrometers. Copying the groove pattern onto polystyrene mass-produced a replica substrate. Tungsten probes were then aligned on the substrate, and the tips of probes were finely processed in the block.