Iridium Oxide-Platinum Nanocomposite Coating for Neural Electrode

Nanostructured coating materials provide high surface areas for effective signal transduction, addressing the challenge of high interfacial impedance and low cathodic charge storage capacity (CSC _c ) caused by shrinking size of microelectrodes. In order to achieve safe, efficient and durable electrode performances, a novel iridium oxide/platinum (IrO _x /Pt) nanocomposite coating was introduced as a high-performance layer on the Pt substrate to provide extremely large surface, which significantly reduced electrical impedance by 93% and increased the CSC _c up to 54.14 mC×cm ^-2 (15.21 times) compared with that of bare Pt electrodes. In addition, the IrO _x /Pt nanocomposites exhibited great mechanical and electrochemical stability, which was critical and beneficial for effective neural stimulation/recording electrodes for practical applications.