Project description

The iris not only gives our eye its color and thus our personal appearance, but above all plays an important role in the optical system of the eye. Aniridia (absence of the iris) therefore not only reduces the optical quality by photophobia, aberration errors, glare effects and the loss of depth of field, but also has an aesthetic effect on the eye. An appropriate medical technology system must be developed for the described indications to replace the iris with an implant. The primary function is the controlled iris opening depending on the external lighting situation with muscle functions based on dielectric elastomers as artificial muscles.

Functional iris implants would have the decisive advantage of being able to regulate the incident light intensity and thus restore part of the user’s normal vision. Previous silicone implants have a purely aesthetic aspect and are fixed to a certain light intensity.

The development goal of the research project is a demonstrator of an artificial iris based on Dielectric Elastomer Actuators (DEA) as a starting point for the development of an active implant.