Previous research of Professor Richter CP research group (2007) has shown that infrared neural stimulation (INS) could be an alternative approach to evoke auditory neural activities. The laser beam property of the fiber output is a considerable aspect of INS, and the corresponding effects on auditory nerve loop response in vivo deserve further discussions. Professor Tian Lan's research group performed infrared laser beam shaping to study the effect of light stimulation of the auditory nerve to produce OABR signals. The research results show a decrease of the beam divergence compared to a bare output fiber, and the INS with a beam shaping design evokes above 13 % increase on OABR amplitudes than the bare fiber output, especially when enlarging the distance between the optical fiber and the nerve tissue. The beam shaping design can enhance the effect of INS for evoking auditory nerves, and it could be an optimized design in the future implementation of optical cochlear implants.

The research was published in SCI journal "lasers in medical science"(2015) with title "Performance analysis of the beam shaping method on optical auditory neural stimulation in vivo".