Advances In Piezo Mechanics Aid Eye Surgery

Piezo motion-based mechanisms provide a variety of features that are highly sought after in life-science and medical engineering applications, such sterile ceramic designs and lubricant-free drives. Ceramics are also non-magnetic, an advantage in high-energy imaging/scanning based on strong magnetic fields. Piezo mechanisms can also provide very precise motion with incredible speed.

Successful correction of vision defects using optical glass dates back to medieval times. The first clinical studies investigating surgical methods to “shape” the cornea started in the last century. With the advent of the laser, the steel scalpel has been replaced by high energy photons, and a number of different laser methods have become established that correspondingly influence the curvature of the cornea to correct visual acuity.