Researchers in Stanford have worked out a way to beam images to the retinal implants in patients afflicted by a progressive loss of photoreceptor cells. The new technique is a solution to long pending objective of how to get power and data (the image) to an implanted retinal chip. This implant procedure uses near-infrared light to deliver both electricity and image data to the retinal prosthesis.
The 3-millimeter extremely flexible and small implant created by the researchers is an array of miniature solar cells configured in three 30 micrometers layers connected to each other by 300-nanometer-thick silicon joints. To gain benefit of the package that delivers both power and images, the patient is expected to wear a camera embedded glasses which capture the video of what it sees and sends to a portable PC in the pocket which then translates it into 90 nm wavelength light which both power and provides the image to the implanted chip.
Via: IEEESpectrum/PopSci
