Holes help make sponges and English muffins useful (and, in the case of the latter, delicious). Without holes, they wouldn’t be flexible enough to bend into small crevices, or to sop up the perfect amount of jam and butter.

In a new study, University of Chicago scientists find that holes can also improve technology, including medical devices. Published in Nature Materials, the paper describes an entirely new way to make a solar cell: by etching holes in the top layer to make it porous. The innovation could form the basis for a less-invasive pacemaker, or similar medical devices. It could be paired with a small light source to reduce the size of the bulky batteries that are currently implanted along with today’s pacemakers.

“We hope this opens many possibilities for further improvements in this field,” said Aleksander Prominski, the first author on the paper.

Light work

Prominski is a member of the lab of University of Chicago chemist Bozhi Tian, which specializes in creating ways to connect biological tissue and artificial materials — such as wires to modulate brain signals and surfaces for medical implants.

One of the areas they’re interested in is making devices that can be powered by light. We’re most familiar with this technology in the form of solar cells, but they can also use any light source, including artificial ones. When operating in the body, such devices are known as photoelectrochemical cells and can be powered from a tiny optical fiber implanted in the body.

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