Adhesive Cutaneous Conducting Polymer Electrodes

Abstract

Conducting polymers are widely used as electrode coatings in electrophysiology to lower impedance and achieve higher quality recordings and more efficient stimulation. Their availability as dispersions that can be processed directly from solution makes them particularly attractive for applications where low cost and compatibility with mechanically flexible substrates are important. In this work we demonstrate that poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene)-based conducting polymer films can be made adhesive to skin and polyimide by adding acrylic ester copolymer microparticles to the solution. The resultant films remained highly conducting despite incorporating at most 2.5% conducting polymer. We show that adhesive cutaneous electrodes fabricated using these coatings show comparable performance to commercial electrodes in forearm electromyography.