Soft contact single pixel prototype (via Jang-Ung Park)
Contact lenses come in all styles and colors and provide the extra-added function of helping us see, however that is all they do. Contrary to popular belief, contact lenses are not capable of deploying high-powered lasers to cut through steel; they will not give us x-ray vision or allow us to see into the future. They may incorporate a HUD (Heads up Display) display however sometime in the near future and negate the need of wearing the socially awkward Google Glass wearable computer. Chemical engineers, led by Jang-Ung Park, from various institutions around the globe are developing a way to pair up an overlapping display with off the shelf ordinary contact lenses. Placing a display directly onto a contact lens is not as easy as it may sound especially using a translucent material that is capable of conducting electricity efficiently. The front-runner material used widely in today’s rigid electronics consists of indium tin oxide, however the material isn’t known for its flexible properties and needs to be deposited onto surfaces using high heat which precludes using it for contact lenses.
To overcome that problem the engineering team used silver nano-wires sandwiched between layers of graphene, which is not only transparent (letting 94% of light to pass through the material) and flexible but provides efficient conductivity. To accomplish this feat the engineers concocted liquid solutions of both materials, which were then deposited on the surface of the contact lens (at low temperatures) as it rotated on a spinning surface. The team was successful at placing a single micro LED onto the surface of the contact lens and tested them on rabbits who have eyes similar to those of humans. After 5 hours, the engineers found that the lenses had no ill side effects on the rabbits including no irritation or becoming blood-shot and found the one-pixel lenses still functioned after the tests. The ultimate end-goal for the team is to have contact lenses that house a small transparent microcomputer for AR (Alternate Reality) applications similar to Google Glass but the technology could also be implemented in the medical field. Biosensors could be made from the silver/grapheme material and placed onto contact lenses to monitor the health conditions of patients by sampling the chemical make-up of the wearers tear secretions. They could also be used much like proscription glasses that automatically darken when exposed to sunlight for people with sensitive eyes but do not want to wear glasses. Still the aspect of housing a computer with an overlapping display system may seem like science fiction at least one mitigating barrier has been overcome by developing a composite material and a process to apply it on irregular surfaces at low temperatures. Now all that needs to happen is developing ultra-micro-sized hardware that is powerful enough to provide an AR/HUD overlay which may take some time to achieve. Until then we’re stuck wearing fake glasses - Google Glass.
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