Powering Deep Tissue Microimplants

Wireless Power Transfer to Implants
While this piece is only a link to a PNAS article, it reports an important development in pacemaker design from researchers at Stanford: “Unlike conventional near-field (inductively coupled) coils, for which coupling is limited by exponential field decay, a patterned metal plate is used to induce spatially confined and adaptive energy transport through propagating modes in tissue. We use this method to power a microimplant (2 mm, 70 mg) capable of closed-chest wireless control of the heart that is orders of magnitude smaller than conventional pacemakers. With exposure levels below human safety thresholds, milliwatt levels of power can be transferred to a deep-tissue (>5 cm) microimplant for both complex electronic function and physiological stimulation.” MORE
Image Credit: Stanford Integrated Biomedical Systems