Contact lens gives Near InfraRed vision for humans
New contact lens technology can allow humans to see beyond the red in the visible light spectrum
The technology is based on upconversion nanomaterials. Injected in the retina of animals it allowed the mammals to see NIR images. The difficulty is to develop this technology non-invasive so that it can be used by humans.
The researchers from the University of Science and Technology of China now successfully developed soft transparent contact lenses made of polymer that can provide a wearable solution.
The big hurdle in the development was how to inject the upconversion nano materials whilst remain the transparency of the lenses. Using surface modification of the nano materials and screening of refractive-index-matched polymeric materials, researchers developed UCLs achieving 7–9% UCNP integration while maintaining over 90% transparency in the visible spectrum.
Upcoming research will cope with the widespread presence of multispectral NIR light in natural environments, researchers replaced traditional UCNPs with trichromatic UCNPs to develop trichromatic upconversion contact lenses (tUCLs), which enabled users to distinguish three distinct NIR wavelengths and perceive a broader NIR color spectrum. By integrating color, temporal, and spatial information, tUCLs allowed for precise recognition of multi-dimensional NIR-encoded data, offering improved spectral selectivity and anti-interference capabilities. (Source USTC)
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