Electrode–Electrolyte Interface Modeling and Impedance Characterizing of Tripolar Concentric Ring Electrode

Abstract

Electrodes are used to convert ionic currents to electrical currents in biological systems. Modeling the electrode-electrolyte interface and characterizing the impedance of the interface could help to optimize the performance of the electrode interface to achieve higher signal to noise ratios. Previous work has yielded accurate models for single-element biomedical electrodes. This paper introduces a model for a tripolar concentric ring electrode (TCRE) derived from impedance measurements using electrochemical impedance spectroscopy with a Ten20 electrode impedance matching paste. It is shown that the model serves well to predict the performance of the electrode-electrolyte interface for TCREs as well as standard cup electrodes. In this paper, we also discuss the comparison between the TCRE and the standard cup electrode regarding their impedance characterization and demonstrate the benefit of using TCREs in biomedical applications. We have also conducted auditory evoked potential experiments using both TCRE and standard cup electrodes. The results show that electroencephalography (EEG) recorded from tripolar concentric ring electrodes is beneficial, acquiring the auditory brainstem response with less stimuli with respect to recoding EEG using standard cup electrodes.