Seeing Beyond Nature: Nanowire Lights up Retinal Prosthesis

Human vision, confined to visible wavelengths, represents a mere fraction of the electromagnetic spectrum exploited by other species. Pit vipers detect infrared radiation through specialized pit organs, integrating thermal and visual data to navigate darkness [1]. Conventional retinal prosthetics, limited to visible light and requiring external power or injectable nanomaterials, fail to address this sensory deficit [2-5]. The convergence of biomimetic materials engineering and neuromorphic computing has reached a transformative milestone with the development of retinal prostheses with tellurium nanowire networks (TeNWNs), as reported by S. Wang et al., in Science [6]. This breakthrough not only restores visible light perception in blind animal models but also confers infrared “supervision”—a capability inspired by pit vipers' natural infrared sensing. The device's zero-bias operation and intrinsic neuromorphic signal processing exemplify the potential of bioinspired interactive neuromorphic devices to transcend human sensory limitations [7]. TeNWN's core innovation lies in emulating biological infrared sensing through lattice asymmetry defects in Te nanowires to generate interfacial polarization fields and enable zero-bias photocurrent generation from visible to Near-infrared II (NIR-II). The neuromorphic device emulates retinal neural circuits by generating precise current spikes through nanowire geometry and enhancing contrast sensitivity via activity-dependent synaptic plasticity with surviving bipolar cells. It also achieves seamless biointegration through minimally invasive subretinal implantation (100% retention for 112 days in macaques) and self-organized nanowire networks adapting to retinal curvature to form synaptic-like junctions (Figure 1). Next-generation TeNWNs nanoprosthesis for visual restoration and enhancement. The TeNWN prosthesis exemplifies how neuromorphic materials can transcend traditional prosthetic limitations with closed-loop sensory fusion and biohybrid computation, which marks a pivot from passive sensory replacement to active perception enhancement. By harnessing defect engineering for neuromorphic phototransduction, it achieves what evolution could not: endowing humans with multispectral “supervision”. As bioinspired neuromorphic systems have evolved to incorporate magnetoreception (inspired by migratory birds) or ultrasonic imaging (bat echolocation), they may ultimately dissolve the boundary between biological and various artificial sensations [8-10]. With primate trials underway, this technology heralds a future where blindness treatment involves not just restored vision but fundamentally expanded sensory tasks for dynamic and real-time imaging of live organs [11]. Yixuan Fu: investigation, writing – original draft. Qijun Sun: conceptualization, writing – original draft. This work is financially supported by the National Key Research and Development Program from Ministry of Science and Technology (No. 2023YFB3208102). The authors declare no conflicts of interest. Data available on request from the authors.