Plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition grown carbon nanotubes from ferritin catalyst for neural stimulation microelectrodes

In this work a biocompatible system of carbon nanotube electrodes that are fabricated from ferritin as the catalyst material is demonstrated. For this purpose, a layer of ferritin is patterned using negative resist and ion milling. Afterwards the amino acids around the ferritin cores are removed in oxygen plasma, and dense vertically aligned carbon nanotubes are grown from the well separated iron cores in a plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition process. The application of low growth temperatures down to 450 °C allows for the use of flexible temperature sensitive substrates like artificial mica.