Flexible conductive polymer electrodes for applications in tissue Electrical Impedance Scanning (EIS)

Electrical Impedance Scanning (EIS) is a potential alternative for breast cancer screening, and has been investigated as a breast cancer screening tool since the 1920s. However, it has not become a regular diagnostic tool due to limitations such as low spatial resolution, poor electrode design, and mechanical skin contact issues. In this thesis, we attempt to address these limitations through development and demonstration of a novel flexible conductive nanoparticle composite polymer (C-NCP) electrode array. The array is fabricated using a new multi-level soft lithography. The array is highly flexible, resulting in improved skin contact and easy conformability to curved surfaces. Flexible Ag/AgCl electrodes (average resistivity of 1.75x10-3 +/- 14.3% ohm-m) and Ag/graphene electrodes (average resistivity of 4.45x10-4 +/- 18.7% ohm-m) are fabricated and tested on a tissue phantom and animal flesh. The results are presented in Cole-Cole plot format for easy comparison between regular tissue and tissue with introduced anomalies.