Stability Performance Analysis of Various Packaging Materials and Coating Strategies for Chronic Neural Implants under Accelerated, Reactive Aging Tests

Reliable packaging for implantable neural prosthetic devices in body fluids is a long-standing challenge for devices’ chronic applications. This work studied the stability of Parylene C (PA), SiO(2), and Si(3)N(4) packages and coating strategies on tungsten wires using accelerated, reactive aging tests in three solutions: pH 7.4 phosphate-buffered saline (PBS), PBS + 30 mM H(2)O(2), and PBS + 150 mM H(2)O(2). Different combinations of coating thicknesses and deposition methods were studied at various testing temperatures. Analysis of the preliminary data shows that the pinholes/defects, cracks, and interface delamination are the main attributes of metal erosion and degradation in reactive aging solutions. Failure at the interface of package and metal is the dominating factor in the wire samples with open tips.