The ability to implant sensors and other devices into a person’s body holds great promise for future medical science. The ability to do this would give doctors the ability to monitor minute changes to a person’s physical state along with detecting deviations from normal states that would otherwise be undetectable with current instruments. Much of the advances in this field will be driven by medical device coatings that allow sensors to be safely implanted without long-term side effects.

A paper published in the December 2013 issue of Coatings shows that Diamond Like Carbon (DLC)-based materials show great promise in the development of the next generation of implantable monitors and sensors. Implanted sensors consist of electronics and circuit boards which are no biocompatible. Dense packaging is used to keep biological fluids or tissue from potentially being contaminated by corrosion from the electronics.

The research published in the study shows that modern DLC coatings have the potential to provide an outstanding balance between having a high biocompatibility (i.e. the ability for the material to integrate with biological substances with no ill effects) while also providing a low or controllable level of gas permeation. Extremely thin films of DLC coatings were deposited onto a thin layer of foil to protect against oxygen permeation through the pores in the foil.

Testing confirmed that the foil strips that had been coated had an oxygen transmission rate that was 100 times less than uncoated foil. The films were not cytotoxic and provided a high level of deformability without damage. While more testing is needed, the early results seem to indicate that DLC coatings have the potential to be an outstanding outer layer for implanted sensors.

This post was written by Denton Vacuum, LLC. Visit their site to learn about the latest thin-film technologies including plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition.