LAUSR

In modern biomaterials-based electronics, conductive and flexible biomaterials are gaining increasing attention for their wide range of applications in biomedical and wearable electronics industries. The ecofriendly, biodegradable and self-resorbable nature of these materials make them an excellent choice in fabricating green and transient electronics. Surface functionalization of these biomaterials is required to cater to the need of designing electronics based on these substrate materials. In this work, a low temperature atomic layer deposition (ALD) process of platinum (Pt) is presented to deposit a conductive thin film on collagen biomaterial, for the first time. Surface characterization revealed that a very thin ALD deposited seed layer of TiO2 on collagen surface prior to Pt deposition, is an alternative for achieving a better nucleation and 100% surface coverage of ultra-thin Pt on collagen surfaces. Presence of a pure metallic Pt thin film was confirmed from surface chemical characterization. Electrical characterization proved the existence of a continuous and conductive Pt thin film (~27.8±1.4 nm) on collagen with a resistivity of 295±30 Ω cm, which occurred due to the virtue of TiO2. Analysis of its electronic structures showed that the presence of metastable state due to the presence of TiO2 enable electrons to easily flow from valence into conductive bands. As a result, this turned collagen into a flexible conductive biomaterial.