From the moment a newborn human baby opens his or her eyes, the iris, also called the iris, begins to work in those eyes. As we are all well aware, the iris can close and open the pupil, adjusting the amount of light entering the eye depending on lighting conditions. Mechanical analogs of irises have been developed and used in cameras for quite some time, where they are known as iris, and scientists from Finland and Poland have created a kind of artificial iris, which acts almost the same way as the iris of the living eye. And this will make it possible in the future to create implants that will replace defective or damaged irises.
The artificial iris, a device somewhat resembling a contact lens, was created by researchers from Tampere University of Technology, Finland, together with researchers from the University of Warsaw and the Medical University of Wroclaw, Poland.
The artificial iris is based on a special polymeric material, liquid crystal elastomer, which expands when exposed to light and shrinks when the light level decreases. Changing the shape of the material causes the hole in the center to become either larger or smaller, with the result that the artificial iris works just like the iris of the eye. And unlike other artificial irises, the new device requires neither an external light source nor an external light measurement system to work.
Because the main purpose of the developed artificial iris is to create medical implants, scientists are now working on the problem of its normal functioning in an aquatic environment, in conditions in which the real implant would be. In addition, scientists are working on increasing the sensitivity of the iris material so that small changes in light levels will result in large changes in the iris “pupil” diameter.
