Miniaturized implantable pressure and oxygen sensors based on polydimethylsiloxane thin films.

We demonstrate the application of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) thin films in highly sensitive pressure and oxygen sensors, designed for pressure and oxygen content measurements within the heart and blood vessels. PDMS thin film displacement as a result of pressure changes was transduced by a capacitive detection technique to produce quantitative measurement of absolute pressures. Oxygen measurements were obtained by transducing the current change between a Pt and an Ag/AgCl electrode on a glass substrate, with KCl soaked filter paper as the electrolytic media that is separated from the oxygen carrying fluid by a thin PDMS membrane.