Diamond to become the blind’s best friend
Diamonds are not just a girl’s best friend, but a physicist’s best friend and soon to be the blind’s best friend too with the development of the bionic eye, according to new Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, Professor Steven Prawer.
Professor Prawer leads the Melbourne Materials Institute team that is developing a diamond electrode array that will be part of a chip embedded in the retina for use in the bionic eye.
This device is designed to have sufficient resolution to allow the blind to recognise faces and read large print.
“A blind person will wear a pair of special glasses that captures an image and sends it to a wireless receiver chip implanted in the retina at the back of the eye. This receiver will then send the signal via a specially designed diamond electrode array to the optic nerve to create an image for the person to see,” he explained.
“In order to prevent corrosion of the implanted chip by body fluids, it will also be encased in a biocompatible diamond block,” he clarified.
In 2009, Minister Kim Carr announced that the Australian Government would support the development of the bionic eye by awarding $42 million over four years to the Bionic Vision Australia consortium – of which the Melbourne Materials Institute is a core member.
As a result, Professor Prawer predicts that “a version of bionic eye should be ready for clinical trials within 4 years”.
