Parylene C Aging Studies.

Parylene C is used in a device because of its conformable deposition and other advantages. Techniques to study Parylene C aging were developed, and %22lessons learned%22 that could be utilized for future studies are the result of this initial study. Differential Scanning Calorimetry yielded temperature ranges for Parylene C aging as well as post-deposition treatment. Post-deposition techniques are suggested to improve Parylene C performance. Sample preparation was critical to aging regimen. Short-term (~40 days) aging experiments with free standing and ceramic-supported Parylene C films highlighted %22lessons learned%22 which stressed further investigations in order to refine sample preparation (film thickness, single sided uniform coating, machine versus laser cutting, annealing time, temperature) and testing issues (%22necking%22) for robust accelerated aging of Parylene C.