Abstract

The eye is a vital organ for vision and an important element of facial expression, but also as the first point of contact between people. The loss of an eye has a far-reaching impact on an individual's psyche. Additionally, it affects a patient's professional and social life. Cosmetic rehabilitation with custom made ocular prostheses gives such individuals social and professional acceptance and mitigates problems of re-integration in society. For centuries, ocularists and eye surgeons have worked together to try to create an artificial eye as close to a realistic one as possible. All efforts and investments to improve the appearance of ocular prostheses are neutralized by the immobility of the pupil. Several researchers have proposed ideas to solve this problem, for example, with the use of liquid crystals, sources of light, LED displays, photochromics, magnetic and polarized materials. However, none of these inventions has shown real success so far. This article summarizes the constraints arising from the ocular prostheses manufacturing process and briefly reviews past works on creating a dynamic pupil in order to understand their failures. It also describes in detail recent works and new results from our group that seem to provide a functional solution with emphasis on the challenges and opportunities for research.

Authors and Affiliations