Wu Tianzhun's team of Shenzhen Advanced Institute of Chinese Academy of Sciences made a new breakthrough in the research of high-performance nano modified materials for nerve electrodes

Recently, researcher Wu Tianzhun and his research team of micro nano center of Shenzhen Institute of advanced technology, Chinese Academy of sciences have successfully developed a kind of 3D iridium oxide / platinum nanocomposite with high performance and controllable preparation, which is used to modify nerve microelectrode and has achieved record electrical performance Relevant research results "well controlled 3D iridium oxide / platinum nanocomposites with great enhanced electrical performance" have been published on the authoritative journal advanced materials interfaces (DOI: 10.1002 / ADI 201900356) of materials interface online The first author is Zeng Qi, assistant researcher, and the corresponding author is Wu Tianzhun In recent years, with the rapid development of miniaturized and flexible electronic devices and portable, wearable and implantable devices, the demand of micro energy storage devices is growing Among them, micro electrochemical capacitors (ECSS) can achieve a very high energy storage density As a typical micro EC, nerve electrode is widely used in cochlear implant, artificial retina, brain stimulator and other nerve prostheses The micro electrode array can provide higher electrical stimulation / recording efficiency for clinical use However, the large reduction of electrode size will cause great interface impedance, which will seriously degrade the charge storage and injection capacity, thus limiting its application At present, the coating obtained by surface modification of microelectrode can not meet the requirements of low impedance, high charge storage capacity, high charge injection capacity and long-term stability Based on the above considerations, researcher Wu Tianzhun and his team member Zeng Qi et al Have successfully developed an iridium oxide / platinum nanocone composite coating (electrochemistry Acta, 2017, 237, 152-159) in their previous work, which effectively improved the electrical performance and stimulation efficiency of the electrode The research team further developed 3D platinum nano flower structure based on the previous platinum nano cone, and explored its evolution; at the same time, the iridium oxide nano particles can be well attached to the above platinum nano structure The results show that the electrochemical impedance of 3D IR / Pt nanocomposites modified on the surface of microelectrode (electrode diameter: 200 μ m) is 94.52% lower than that of unmodified electrode, and the storage capacity of cathode charge is increased by more than 56 times (an order of magnitude higher than previous work) After more than 100 million times of continuous electric pulse stimulation, the cathode charge storage capacity of the composite modified electrode is still above 86% In addition, its charge injection ability is as high as 6.37 MC · cm-2, which is far ahead of the reported platinum / iridium nerve electrode modified materials It also shows excellent specificity and sensitivity in glucose detection The research results can effectively solve the existing technical short board, have strong operability, and can be mass produced It has important guiding significance for the development of microelectrode surface modification materials and nerve electrode stimulation / recording represented by artificial retina It is expected to be widely used in the fields of nerve prosthesis, high-efficiency stimulation / recording electrode, biosensor, energy storage, etc The above research was supported by NSFC, Guangdong Natural Science Foundation, Shenzhen peacock team and other projects.