Engineers design artificial retina

17 Jun 2002

Restoring sight to the blind may sound like a miracle to some, but not to a team of researchers from North Carolina State University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Johns Hopkins University. They are working on the design of a microchip, called an artificial retina component chip (ARCC), that could restore sight to people with retinal pigmentosa.

Just two millimeters square, the wafer-thin silicon microchip is imbedded with photosensor cells and electrodes. At that size, the ARCC can be implanted in the blind person's eye near the vision center of the retina. Powered by an exterior laser aimed at a photovoltaic cell, the photosensor cells in the microchip receive light and images through the pupil.