| |
Diamond films may help restore sight |
|
Work with ultrananocrystalline diamond (UNCD) films has opened the possibility of developing an implantable artificial retina that may restore vision to millions of people who have lost their sight to degenerative retinal diseases. Collaborators at eight organizations have created and are refining a device to replace the eye’s destroyed rods and cones as light receptors and optical signal converters. It consists of a tiny camera and radio-frequency transmitter on a patient’s glasses that captures images and transmits the information to a microchip implanted in the eye. The processed image is then transmitted to the brain as electrical impulses via an array of electrodes on the surface of the retina. Orlando Auciello, senior scientist and the principal investigator at Argonne, said Argonne’s role is to develop UNCD as a hermetic coating that protects the silicon microchip in the eye, providing an implant with longevity. “The eye is a corrosive environment,” he notes. “Silicon chips dissolve, but diamond is biocompatible and protects the silicon. Hermetically coating the chip with UNCD allows successful implantation.” Auciello and materials scientists Dieter M. Gruen and John A. Carlisle are adapting UNCD technology to package implantable electronics and as electrodes. A $9 million, four-year grant from the Department of Energy’s Office of Biological and Environmental Research is funding the project, which involves Argonne, Sandia, Oak Ridge, Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos national laboratories, North Carolina State University in Raleigh, the University of Southern California’s Doheny Eye Institute, and California-based Second Sight, L.L.C. For more information, please contact Richard Greb. |