Laser fabrication of electrical feedthroughs in polymer encapsulations for active implantable medical devices.

Hermetic electrical feedthroughs are essential for safe and functional active implantable biomedical devices and for a wide range of other applications such as batteries, supercapacitors, OLEDs and solar cells. Ceramics and metals have previously been the materials of choice for encapsulations, while polymers have advantages of ease of mass production and end user compatibility. We demonstrate a laser sealing technology that gives hermetic, mechanically strong feedthroughs with low electrical resistance in a polyetheretherketone (PEEK) encapsulation.