Dr. Jun-Hee Na, Dept. of Electric, Electronic and Communication Engineering Edu., Chungnam National University, Korea

Speech Title: Application of a Contact Lens Type Artificial Iris With Self-Regulating Capability by Reversible Photoreaction

Abstract: Application of an artificial iris which provides the biocompatibility, the self-regulation capability without any peripheral component, and replaceability of iris’ function without surgery. The self-regulation of incident light into eye was achieved by using the reversible conformation change of a photoreactive material and spiropyran based dyes. The novel biocompatible polymer coating technique based on wettability control was applied on contact lens substrate.

We proposed a new type of artificial iris based on the reversible photochromic dyes embedded in a biocompatible polymer network. The scalable pupil was precisely defined using the selective wetting inscription of commanding layer. Also, our method requires no extra elements such as driving circuits and peripheral sensors for regulating the incident light to the retina. This concept of the artificial iris can be directly applied to implant a prosthetic iris such as contact lens.

This work was supported by the National Research Foundation (NRF) grant funded by the Korea government
(No. NRF-2017R1D1A1B03029573).

Keywords: Artificial Iris, Self-regulation, Contact lens