Retinal Prosthesis
Retinitis pigmentosa, age-related macular degeneration, and Stargardt disease are the most common incurable eye diseases associated with outer retinal degeneration leading to blindness. Electrical retinal prosthesis has validated its clinical promises. Yet, it still suffers from fundamental limitations such as the invasive nature of the device and both the limited number and fixed location of stimulation sites. Above all, since electric currents spread in conductive media like the retina, it is quite challenging to achieve single-cell resolution; it is currently ~150 μm while the targeted retinal ganglion cells are ~10 μm in size. To overcome these drawback we aim to develop high-resolution, fully non-invasive photonic retinal prosthesis (RP). Several approaches are being investigated: 1) optogenetic based RP, 2) photothermal based RP, 3) photovoltaic based RP.