Scientists take one step closer to creation of Bionic Eye

by Stevie Smith - Aug 8 2008, 06:33

Using conventional sensor materials, scientists working out of the United States have created an eye-shaped camera that could potentially enhance the performance of consumer products such as digital cameras -- and perhaps even lead to the future development of prosthetic bionic eyes for the blind.

With their findings officially published this week in the journal Nature, Yonggang Huang of the Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, and John Rogers of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, say they were able to solve the longstanding problem of how to place a camera across a curved surface without fracturing its microelectronic elements.

The scientists successfully worked around the problem by developing a flexible, mesh-like material consisting of tiny squares that house the camera technology’s necessary photodetectors and electronics. Those individual squares are connected to one another via a wired network that enables the whole mesh to fit and mould to a curved surface without breaking.

“This is the first time we’ve demonstrated a camera on a curved surface to really make it look like a human eye,” commented Huang in a telephone interview with the Reuters news agency, while Rogers enthused in a statement that the team’s approach will allow camera electronics to be applied in places that were previously inaccessible.

Supported by the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Energy, the Illinois-based scientists say their digital camera boasts the size, shape and layout of a human eye, and will enable increases in depth of vision when taking photographs.

“Currently when you take photos, the middle part of the picture is very clear but when you go to the edge, it is not so clear,” explained Huang, before outlining that the new curved technology “will make the entire picture clear.”

Beyond its obvious quality applications in the world of consumer electronics, the team claims that its breakthrough could also be used to provide better scanning and imaging equipment for the medical industry, and could even be used to help develop an artificial retina or complete bionic eye.

While the curved camera is already functioning well alongside computers, Huang notes that one of the main stumbling blocks associated with applying the curved digital camera as part of a replacement human eye is getting the technology to successfully interact with the brain.

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