Next generation of retinal implants Has 17 Times Higher Resolution
A close-up view of the flexible retinal implant made of silicon. It has tiny bridges that allow it to fold over the shape of the eye and provide a high-resolution image.
This is also the first flexible implant, and it makes use of a material commonly used in computer chips and solar cells. Peumans and his team at the Stanford Nanofabrication Facility engineered a silicon implant with tiny bridges that allow it to fold over the shape of the eye. “The advantage of having it flexible is that relatively large implants can be placed under the retina without being deformed, and the whole image would stay in focus,” Palanker said. A set of flexible implants can cover an even larger portion of the retina, allowing patients to see the entire visual field presented on the display.
The Stanford device is implanted under the retina, at the earliest possible stage in the visual pathway. “In many degenerative diseases where the photoreceptors are lost, you lose the first and second cells in the pathway,” Baccus said. “Ideally you want to talk to the next cell that’s still there.” The goal is to preserve the complex circuitry of the retina so that images appear more natural.
