BIONIC EYES USING CERAMIC

MICRODETECTORS

--A ray of hope for

the blind

Presented by:
 P.S.Sowmya Pujitha(sowmya.pujitha@gmail.com)
 Esha Mayuri.

ABSTRACT a person who is retinally-blind might be able to

regain some of their sight.

Blindness is more feared by the There are some diseases where

public than any ailment except cancer and AIDS. the sensors in the eye, the rods and cones, have
Rods and Cones. Millions of them are in the deteriorated but all the wiring is still in place, In
back of every healthy human eye. They are such cases, thin-film ceramic sensors could serve
biological solar cells in the retina that convert as substitutes for bad rods and cones. The result
light to electrical impulses -- impulses that travel would be a "bionic eye”.
along the optic nerve to the brain where images
are formed. Indeed, many people are blind -- or This paper contains a brief summary of the need
going blind -- because of malfunctioning rods for ceramic microdetectors, their structure,
and cones. Retinitis pigmentosa and macular implantation, functioning, advantages and
degeneration are examples of two such disadvantages.
disorders. If we could only replace those
damaged rods and cones with artificial ones, then INTRODUCTION
Background has a small device implanted into the body that
can receive radio signals and transmit those
Since Swedish engineer Arne Larsson received
the first fully implanted cardiac pacemaker more

the world have looked at than 40 years ago,

researchers around ways of improving people’s
lives with artificial, bionic devices. One of the
most dramatic applications of bionics is the
creation of artificial eyes. Early efforts used
silicon-based photodetectors, but silicon is toxic
to the human body and reacts unfavourably with
fluids in the eye. Now, scientists at the Space
Vacuum Epitaxy Centre (SVEC) based at the
University of Houston, Texas, are using a new
material they have developed, tiny ceramic
signals to nerves. It is a silicon chip which
photocells that could detect incoming light and
decodes the radio signals and delivers the
so ‘repair’ malfunctioning human eyes.
stimulations. The chip sends messages to the
retinal ganglion cells through small wires. The
The first look at bionic eye
device receives signals from a pair of glasses
worn by the patient, which are fitted with a
The device consists of a silicon chip inserted into
camera.
the eye, which is designed to act like a retina —
The camera feeds the visual information into a
receiving images captured by a pair of glasses
separate image-processing unit, which makes
worn by the user.
'sense' of the image by extracting certain
Bionic eye work by stimulating nerves, which
features. The unit then breaks down the image
are activated by electrical impulses The patient
into pixels and sends the information, one pixel
at a time, to the silicon chip, which then
reconstructs the image

The data is broadcasted into the body

using radio waves. It's like a radio station that
only has a range of 25 millimetres.

The bionic eye sits in the eyeball,

replacing the retina. The strings are
aluminium wires that send the
signals from the chip. The whole
device is about the size of a five-
cent piece
Success of silicon metal detectors till experiments helped them develop the oxide
(ceramic) detectors used for the ‘bionic eye’.
date

Silicon has not been successful to date, and its

use continues to suffer from problems of
deterioration of the chip, contamination of the
eye and atrophy of the retina. Ceramic
microdetectors should overcome all of these
problems. In fact, thin- photosensitive ceramic
films respond to light as much as rods and cones
do.

ORIGINS OF TECHNOLOGY

(ceramic microdetectors)
Structure of microdetectors
The new thin photosensitive ceramic films could
offer hope to sufferers, but manufacturing an The ceramic microdetectors resemble the ultra-

artificial replacement for millions of rods and thin films found in modern computer chips. The

cones is no easy task. Crafting the films is a skill arrays are stacked in a hexagonal structure,

SVEC scientists learned from experiments which mimics the arrangement of the rods and

conducted using the Wake Shield Facility (WSF) cones it has been designed to replace. This work

- a 3.5m diameter disk-shaped platform launched differs from other existing works by using a

from the space shuttle. The WSF was designed newly developed oxide thin-film ceramic

by SVEC engineers to study epitaxial film microdetector that does not require encapsulation

growth in the ultra-vacuum of space. They grew or wire connections for integration into the

thin oxide films using atomic oxygen in low- human retina.

Earth orbit as a natural oxidising agent. Those

How ceramic microdetectors overcome
problems with silicon implants

One problem that has plagued silicon implants is

solved by the ceramic detectors. The naturally
porous structure allows nutrients to flow from
the back to the front of the eye, preventing
atrophication of the retina. Also, whereas silicon
needs to be encapsulated because of its toxicity implantation. Human cones (~5-10µm) arranged
in the human body, ceramic sensors don’t require in a hexagonal array.
any such treatment. There is no need to
encapsulate the ceramic microdetectors or have Implantation
wire connections to the bipolar layer of cells that
neighbour the human cones. The microdetectors An incision is made in the white portion of the
are simply placed into the subretinal space as an eye and the retina is elevated by injecting fluid
array of individual microdetectors, which allows underneath, within that little blister, we place the
the passage of nutrients from the back of the eye artificial retina.
to the interior, thus preventing atrophy of
neighbouring cells, which can occur when large
encapsulated detectors are used.

First generation of artificial retinas

The first generation of artificial retinas

constructed at SVEC consist of 100,000 tiny
ceramic microdetectors, each one twentieth the
size of a human hair, figure. The assemblage is
A schematic diagram of the retina -- a light-
so small that surgeons can’t safely handle it. So
sensitive layer that covers 65% of the interior
instead, the arrays are attached to a polymer film
surface of the eye
one millimetre by one millimetre in size. The
film is designed to dissolve after a couple weeks,
leaving the array in position on the retina.
SYSTEM DESIGN
Let's take an example with viewing a flower
First, light from the flower enters the video
camera. (The camera technology is already pretty
good at adjusting contrast and other types of
image enhancement.) The video camera then
sends the image of the flower to the wallet-sized
computer for complex processing. The processor
then wirelessly sends its image of the flower to
an infrared LED-LCD screen mounted on the
Figure: First generation ceramic thin film
goggles. The transparent goggles reflect an
microdetectors (~30µm in size) attached in a
infrared image into the eye and onto the retinal
square array onto a polymer carrier for surgical
chip. Just as a person with normal vision cannot
see the infrared signal coming out of a TV
remote control, this infrared flower image is also
invisible to normal photoreceptors. But for those
sporting retinal implants, the infrared flower
electrically stimulates the implant's array of
photodiodes.
The above is the system design for a si implant.
When ceramic microdetectors are used the
patient requires no externally-worn devices,
because of the optical properties of ceramic
microdetectors.
Functioning of ceramic microdetectors
Ceramic optical detectors are based on the
photo-ferroelectric effect. In retinal dystrophies
where the optic nerve and retinal ganglia are
intact (such as Retinitis Pigmentosa), direct
retinal implant of an optical detector to stimulate
retinal ganglia could allow patients to regain
some sight. In such cases additional wiring to the
brain cortex is not required, and for biologically
inert detectors, surgical implantation can be quite
direct. The detector currently being developed
for this application Center is a thin film
ferroelectric detector, which under optical
illumination can generate a local photocurrent
and photo voltage. The local electric current
generated by this miniature detector excites the
retinal neural circuit resulting in a signal at the
optic nerve that may be translated by the cortex
of the brain as "seeing light". Detectors based on
PbLaZrTiO3 (PLZT) and BiVMnO3 (BVMO)
films exhibit a strong photoresponse in visible
range overlapping eye response from 380 nm to
650 nm.
Photo ferroelectric effect
An effect observed in ferroelectric ceramics such
as PLZT materials, in which light at or near the
band-gap energy of the material has an effect on
the electric field in the material created by an
applied voltage, and, at a certain value of the
voltage, also influences the degree of
ferroelectric remanent polarization.
Biological trials
Human trials have begun. But still
biocompatibility tests will continue in rabbits
with identification of both ‘rabbit-eye’ and
microdetector stability. Dr Charles Garcia is
leading the tests from the University of Texas
Medical School and St Joesph’s Hospital. ‘We
still have to prove that the microdetectors work
in vivo,’ says Ignatiev. ‘They output the
appropriate voltage amount in the laboratory
experimental system, but we don’t know how
their voltage output will respond when implanted
in the eye.’ Ignatiev and his team of scientists are
also unsure how the brain will interpret these
‘foreign’ signals generated by the artificial light
sensors, compared with the signals generated
naturally by human rods and cones. They believe
the brain will eventually adapt, although a slow
learning process might be necessary -- something
akin to the way an infant learns shapes and
colors for the first time.
Advantages
• The obvious benefit is to improve the
quality of life for those with retinal
disorders.
• Despite complex engineering issues,
these different approaches for restoring
vision in retinally blind people have led
to encouraging preliminary results.
Disadvantages
• Surgical implantation is problematic for
any micro-implantation of small
devices, tissues or cell cultures, so
polymer carriers are used. The
disadvantage associated with these
polymers is the time it takes to degrade
which depends on the nature and, also,
the thickness of the polymer.
• Yet, several questions need to be
answered in order to better define the
parameters influencing the optimal
performance of such artificial retinas
such as sensitivity, long-term stability,
and the degree of spatial resolution that
might be achieved by these devices.
Moreover, the design of reliable and
reasonably safe surgical procedures for
implantation as well as biocompatibility
and long term function of implanted
devices still remain in the forefront of
ongoing investigations.
The future
There is still an enormous amount of work to be
done in developing artificial retinas, and the
response so far to the work has been extremely
positive. The immediate goal is to develop a
functioning artificial retina with resolution that
mimics human sensors. Once this step has been
achieved, then attention can be brought to bear
on colour vision, followed by the replacement of
some of the interconnecting neural cells that lead
to the optic nerve.
Around the world, other ‘bionic eyes’ are still
being developed. However, all these
developments are designed to help repair
degenerative diseases of the retina, and not
damage to the optic nerve or brain. Therefore,
current devices won’t help sufferers of
glaucoma, in which there is damage to the optic
nerve. ‘Optic nerve replacement is a huge
challenge,’ says Ignatiev. ‘There are more than
1.2 million connections, and there will be a long
learning curve for microsurgeons to be able to
make such connections to artificial parts of the
eye.’
CONCLUSION
The implants of this invention comprising arrays
of thin film oxide optical microdetectors and
their implantation technology presented in this
paper represent an ideal approach to correcting
or restoring vision in terms of simplicity,
durability, biocompatibility and implantation
mechanism. The technology is still in its infancy.
Yet it's very promising.

REFERENCES
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• Zomorrodian, A.; Wu, N.J.; Wilczak,

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Page(s): 129 – 132

• M. S. Humayun, E. de Juan, G.
Dannelie, R. J. Greenberg, R. H. Probst
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• N. J. Wu and A. Ignatiev. Treating

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