Electroceutical therapeutic devices which act as nerve interfaces have the potential to
provide non-/minimally invasive treatments for a range of medical conditions.
Examples of clinically translated devices employing electronics include cardiac
pacemakers, electrodes for deep brain stimulation, bionic eyes and ears, and
implantable pumps or controlled drug delivery. The success of such implanted
materials/devices requires biocompatibility (i.e., no/minimal inflammatory response),
with the ability to interact with external technology through transistors and circuits.
This thesis builds upon investigations of printing 3D structures via direct laser writing
of conductive polymers, to enable research on conductive biomaterials for various
applications. The interdisciplinary project employs approaches involving chemistry,
engineering and physics, to facilitate the production and characterisation of
conducting polymer-based structures which can be envisioned to having potential for
various applications in the long term.
This project has shown a number of potential different approaches to form 2D
structures as a result of polymerisation techniques. The primary constraints to stable
structure formation can be identified as the physical strength of thin film polymer
substrates, associated with uniform distribution of a homogenous resist where
absorption of initiator is required for subsequent polymerisation, and the effective
wavelength for the photoinitiator associated to photopolymerisation techniques.
The direct polymerisation techniques of solution-phase and electropolymerisation
contrast with the indirect photopolymerisation technique in terms of the potential for
nano scale feature for bio-electronics from photolithography methods.