Novel cuff electrode and method for producing these

The present invention relates to a configuration which comprises multiple electrodes placed on a flexible substrate and which can be used in the fields of medicine and biology. State-of-the-art electrodes are commonly made of wires introduced into the tissues or comprise metal plates inserted by hand in between silicon layers. These electrodes usually cause wounds in the nerve tissues and finally induce nerve cell death or restrain the positioning precision as well as the number of electrodes. The purpose of this invention is to provide electrode configurations with a large number of electric poles, well-defined electrode surfaces and a precise distance between the different electrodes as well as between the electrodes and the tissues. To this end, the method implies the special use and the perfecting of micro-structure and micro-system techniques on bio-compatible and flexible materials such as polyimide and silicone. This method comprises forming and encapsulating metallic electrodes and inter-connection tracks on bio-compatible materials according to the thin-film techniques. The new Cuff electrode is manufactured by joining two polymer sheets having a high E modulus on an intermediate elastomer layer having a low E modulus so as to obtain the desired final shape.