“Amongst the solutions considered, diamond is one of the most promising,” said Philippe Bergonzo from the French Atomic Energy Commission, France. “Diamond is a very well known semi conductor when you add boron to it, and we have confirmed it is biocompatible.” “In fact, diamond is the only known bioinert semiconductor,” he concluded. According to preliminary tests with the first implanted diamond-based prototype, their idea seems to work. Diamond-based Bionic eye CEA researchers have been working on the diamond interfaces since December 2006 as part of the European project DREAMS. DREAMS stands for Diamond Retinal Artificial Microinterface Structures. The project combines physics, electronics and biology. A camera included in sunglasses sends a digitalised image to an implant located close to the retina. The image pattern of
In 2013 the EuroNanoForum will be held in Dublin. Liam Brown, from Enterprise Ireland, who is the National Delegate for Nanotechnology under the European Framework 7 programme, said that hosting the event will highlight the high level of success that Irish researchers have achieved in this fast developing area. pixels is converted into electrical pulses representing light and dark transmitted to the implant. The implant is a diamond interface consisting of a few square millimetres of flexible plate with an electrochemical coupling, directly in contact with the retina. “It is an assembly of nanometric diamond crystals stuck together to form a film,” Prof Bergonzo explained. This contains a network of electrodes which work as the artificial equivalent of the retina’s photoreceptors. The electrodes
are stimulated in accordance with the encoded pattern of light and dark, as the retina’s photoreceptors would be. In turn, the stimulated electrodes inject an electrical current travelling along the normal brain pathways (the optical nerves) to stimulate the visual cortex and generate a series of luminous points (an array of pixels) in the sightless person’s vision field. The more pixels are excited, the more acute the vision will be. At the moment their prototype makes it possible for a patient to read, but only text with large letters and big contrast, so the scientists are focusing on increasing the number of pixels to improve resolution.
Marie-Catherine Mousseau has a PhD in neuroscience from Pierre et Marie Curie University, Paris, and has a MSc in Science Communications from DCU/Queen’s.
Other health projects, such as DREAMS, might not be just a dream and may make possible the retrieval of lost senses. And beyond energy and health, there are many others still, in the environmental realm for instance, where nanoparticles are used to capture carbon or to sense contaminants in water. ‘Projects’, ‘future’, ‘if’, ‘potential’, ‘might’, may all be key words here. It takes about 20 years for a new technology to emerge from the lab to the market. So wait and see.
Poor relation
WATChIng molecules in action requires some very expensive equipment. At Stanford University there is an X-ray free electron laser and a kilometre long accelerator which can do that job, but it has a price tag amounting to a good few hundred million dollars. According to the Technical university of Eindhoven in The netherlands, researchers there have come up with a low-cost tabletop alternative. Instead of using X-rays, research student, Thijs van Oudheusden, has designed a machine that uses electrons. As a result, the cost, at about half a million euros, is a lot less, and it can yield many of the same sort of results.
Observing molecules in action requires exposing them to extremely brief pulses of radiation and interpreting the diffraction pattern. At Stanford, electrons are accelerated and then converted into X-rays, but as van Oudheusden argued, why not use electrons directly? however,
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