Delivering optical power to subcutaneous implanted devices

In this paper, a new, easy-to-implement, and MRI-compatible approach for delivering power to implantable devices is presented. The idea is to harvest the energy of light within the therapeutic window wavelengths, where the optical absorption is small, by using subcutaneous photovoltaic (PV) cells. Depending on the application, this energy can then be used to directly drive the embedded electronics of an implanted device or recharge its battery. To show the feasibility of this system, a CMOS chip based on this concept has been implemented and tested. The experimental results demonstrate that μW´s of power in ambient light conditions can be harvested using mm²-size PV cells. This amount of power is sufficient to address the needs of many low-power applications.