Improved wetting of gold active braze alloy on diamond for use in medical implants

K Edalati; M Stamp; K Ganesan; A Stacey; G Martin-Hardy; R Fontaine; S Prawer; DJ Garrett

Journal article

Improved wetting of gold active braze alloy on diamond for use in medical implants

K Edalati, M Stamp, K Ganesan, A Stacey, G Martin-Hardy, R Fontaine, S Prawer, DJ Garrett

Diamond and Related Materials | Elsevier | Published : 2020

DOI: 10.1016/j.diamond.2020.108089

Abstract

Medical implants containing active electronics must have a leak-proof encapsulation to be certified as safe for human use. Implantable devices made from diamond demonstrated exceptionally long implantation lifetimes due to the outstanding biostability and biocompatibility of the material. However, since diamond does not melt and is therefore not weldable, forming joints between diamond components or embedding metallic wires and bonding pads within diamond is challenging. One method consists of using active braze alloys to bond diamond surfaces together. These active brazes comprise a precious metal alloy containing a carbide forming element that chemically bonds to the diamond as the braze m..

View full abstract

University of Melbourne Researchers

Melanie Stamp Author

Kumaravelu Ganesan Author

Steven Prawer Author

Related Projects (4)

Laser powered miniature bionic devices

Laser powered miniature bionic devices. This project aims to develop a laser-based system to wirelessly power and control implantable medica..

NEXT GENERATION CYBERNETICS: LONG TERM CARBON FIBRE DUAL STIMULATION / RECORDING ELECTRODE ARRAYS FOR CLOSED LOOP NEURAL IMPLANTS

Electrodes implanted in the brain have enormous potential for treating a range of conditions from epilepsy to control of prosthetics for pat..

DEVELOPMENT OF A HIGH ACUITY, DIAMOND RETINAL PROSTHESIS

Over recent years our team has developed a retinal implant to restore sight to people with certain types of blindness. With 256 independentl..

Laser powered miniature bionic devices

This project aims to develop a laser-based system to wirelessly power and control implantable medical micro-devices. Very-large-scale integr..

Grants

Awarded by Australian Research Council

Awarded by National Health and Medical Research Council

Funding Acknowledgements

The work was performed in part at the Melbourne Centre for Nanofabrication (MCN) in the Victorian Node of the Australian National Fabrication Facility (ANFF). DJG is supported by NHMRC Project Grant GNT1101717 and by an Australian National Fabrication Facility (ANFF)/Melbourne Centre for Nanofabrication (MCN) Technology Ambassador Fellowship. SP is a shareholder in iBIONICS, a company developing a diamond based retinal prosthesis. SP and DJG are shareholders and public officers of Carbon Cybernetics Pty Ltd., a company developing diamond and carbon-based medical device components. The other authors declare no conflict of interest. We would like to thank the Bio21 Advanced Microscopy Facility (the University of Melbourne) for training and assistance with SEM and EDS imaging of samples. The research was supported by a Development Grant from The National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC, GNT1118223) of Australia and ARC linkage grant LP160101052.