title: Capacitive Feedthroughs for Medical Implants.
abstract: Important technological advances in the last decades paved the road to a great success story for electrically stimulating medical implants, including cochlear implants or implants for deep brain stimulation. However, there are still many challenges in reducing side effects and improving functionality and comfort for the patient. Two of the main challenges are the wish for smaller implants on one hand, and the demand for more stimulation channels on the other hand. But these two aims lead to a conflict of interests. This paper presents a novel design for an electrical feedthrough, the so called capacitive feedthrough, which allows both reducing the size, and increasing the number of included channels. Capacitive feedthroughs combine the functionality of a coupling capacitor and an electrical feedthrough within one and the same structure. The paper also discusses the progress and the challenges of the first produced demonstrators. The concept bears a high potential in improving current feedthrough technology, and could be applied on all kinds of electrical medical implants, even if its implementation might be challenging.
authors.affiliation: Research Center Juelich, Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine 7 - Neuromodulation Juelich, Germany.
authors.forename: Sven
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Grob
authors.affiliation: Research Center Juelich, Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine 7 - NeuromodulationJuelich, Germany; Department of Neuromodulation, University of CologneCologne, Germany; Department of Neurosurgery, Stanford UniversityStanford, CA, USA.
authors.forename: Peter A
authors.initials: PA
authors.lastname: Tass
authors.affiliation: Research Center Juelich, Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine 7 - Neuromodulation Juelich, Germany.
authors.forename: Christian
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Hauptmann
keywords: additive manufacturing; barium titanate; capacitive feedthrough; casing; coupling capacitor; electrical feedthrough; medical implant