New contacts allow you to see infrared light, even with closed eyes
Directly from science fiction, these contact lenses convert infrared light into a visible light that humans can see
People who tested a new type of designer contact lens could see intermittent infrared signs of a light source.
Humans have a new way of seeing infrared light, without the need for clumsy night vision glasses. Researchers have conducted the first contact lenses to transmit infrared vision, and the devices work even when people have their eyes closed.
The team behind the invention, led by scientists from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) in Hefei, gave the lenses their power by infusing them with nanoparticles that convert infrared light almost into introerhtehtrehtreht that humans can see, in the range of 400–700 nanometer. Researchers estimate that the lenses cost around US $ 200 per par to do.
The technology, which was detailed in Cell on May 22, “is incredible, as something outside a science fiction film,” says Xiaomin Li, chemistry from Fudan University in Shanghai, China. Open “new possibilities to understand the world around us,” he adds.
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Pros and cons
The nearby infrared light is located on the outskirts of the wavelength range that humans can normally detect. Some animals may feel infrared light, although probable not well enough to form images.
Night vision glasses allow humans to see infrared radiation, but are bulky and require a source of energy to work. The new lenses prevent thesis limitations while offering richer and more multicolored infrared images than night vision glasses, which operate on monochromatic green scale, they usually don’t.
However, the lenses have their own deficiencies. Because embedded nanoparticles disperse the light, the images that create the lenses are blurred. The team partially corrected this by placing technology in glasses with additional lenses that redirect the light. Moreoover, unlike the night vision glasses, which amplify the light to detect low -level infrared signals, the lenses allow users intense infrared signals alone, such as those emitted by light emitting diodes (LED).
For these reasons, some critics do not believe that the lenses will be useful. “I cannot think of any application that is not fundamentally simpler with infrared glasses,” says Glen Jeffery, a neuroscientist from the University College London who specializes in ocular health. “Evolution has avoided this for a good reason.”
Neverberness, authors think that their lenses can be optimized even more and foresee several possible uses for the invention. For example, users could read the anti-conception marks that emit infrared wavelengths but are invisible to the human eye, says co-author Yuqian Ma, neuroscientist in the USTC.
Li, which did not participate in the work, sacrifices another possibility: doctors can use lenses that perform near infrared fluorescence surgery, to directly detect and eliminate cancer lesions “without relying on voluminous commercial equipment.”
‘An exciting moment’
To create contact lenses, scientists were based on previous research on which they gave an infrared mice vision by injecting nanoparticles into animal retinas. This time, they adopted a less invasive approach and added nanoparticles made of strange land metals, including Itterbium and Erbium, to a polymer construction blocks soup to form soft lenses, and then tested for safety.
The main challenge, says Ma, was to pack enough nanoparticles in the lenses to convert sufficient infrared light into detectable visible light, while not altering the optical properties of the lenses, including their transparency.
The tests in mice showed that the animals used by the lenses tended to choose a dark box that would be considered “safe” approximately an illuminated by infrared light, waseas mice without the lenses did not show preference for any of the houses. The humans who used the lenses could see flash infrared light of a LED well enough to collect code signs and sense of what direction the signs came. The yield of the lenses even improved when the participants closed their eyes, because the light of the nearly infrared easily penetrates the eyelids, while the visible light, which could have interfered with the formation of images, does it to a lesser extent.
“Being witnessing people who wore contact lenses and successfully seeing infrared flashes was undoubtedly a stimulating moment,” says Ma.
The team now plans to find ways to put more nanoparticles in the lenses and hopes to develop that they can convert the light more efficiently, to improve the sensitivity of technology. “We have overcome the physiological limitations of human vision, as if opened a new window to the world,” says Ma.
This article reproduces with permission and laundry. First published May 22, 2025.
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