Engineering Nitinol Thin Films for Medical Devices – A Process Review

Engineering with Nitinol materials using lasers and textile technology from semi-finished materials like sheets, tubes and wires are proven manufacturing processes in the engineering community. It is well known how to develop and apply various process technologies in the most efficient and reliable way. Recently, Nitinol Sputter Deposition Technology has been proposed as an innovative manufacturing process resulting in superior fatigue performances and consistent material characteristics up to 85 μm thickness. Developing new and cost effective micro components and devices from sputter deposition, however, requires dedicated and advanced design rules.

The authors will review a number of engineering (e.g. FEA) and advanced processes to use Nitinol Sputter Technology for micro actuators and medical devices. A number of enhanced micro joining and femto-laser technologies for various types of system building concepts and product applications will be presented. Functional, mechanical and fatigue data will be reviewed to proof the safety and reliability of added system building processes to further guide in developing integrated Nitinol implant and medical devices. Finally, general design guidelines to engineer future Nitinol Thin Films into products such as BioMEMS devices and in the areas of neurostimulation, cardiac rhythm management, ophthalmology, cochlea implants and other applications will be shown.