Solar-Powered Implants May Help Your Eyes

It looks like going green may not only save you a hefty energy bill and the environment, but there's a chance it could also help save your eyesight. A new implant being developed at Stanford University turns light into nerve impulses that are then fired back into the retina, and may allow those with retinal degenerative diseases to regain some of their eyesight.

Retinal implants have existed before but they always came in the form of glasses with the added baggage of an external power source - meaning wires and unwieldiness.

These ones, however, are different.

"It works like the solar panels on your roof, converting light into electric current," Dr. Daniel Palanker, PhD, associate professor of ophthalmology and one of the senior authors of the paper, told GizMag. "But instead of the current flowing to your refrigerator, it flows into your retina."

Tiny goggles equipped with a miniature camera and pocket pc are surgically implanted underneath the retina. The images picked up by these goggles are then beamed via infrared signals to photovoltaic chips, which stimulate the retina. The retina in turn, produces images the brain can interpret. Photovoltaic means that it converts solar radiation into direct electricity - something your retina picks up on.

There are two other prostheses in development, one in Los Angeles and the other in Germany, but both require wires and cables. The fact that the Stanford-developed implant is solar powered allows it to be thinner and more easily implantable.

According to Daniel Palanker, "The surgeon needs only to create a small pocket beneath the retina and then slip the photovoltaic cells inside it." What's more, one can tile these photovoltaic cells in larger numbers inside the eye to provide a wider field of view than the other systems can offer."

Palanker also explained that the idea stems from the concept of a camera. Those suffering from degenartive eyes still have photoreceptors, only they need more light. If he had chosen to use normal light, then the result would have been too bright for the user to handle. Instead he chose to utilize infrared light since it is not visible, and does not further blind the user with brightness, but is still detectable by the eye's photoreceptors.

In the near future, the very sun which may have damaged your eyes, may help to save it.