Scientists have developed innovative contact lenses that allow both humans and mice to see infrared light by converting it into visible colors—without the need for bulky equipment or batteries. These transparent lenses enable users to perceive both regular and infrared light simultaneously and can detect multiple infrared wavelengths at once. Remarkably, the lenses perform even better with eyes closed due to infrared light’s superior penetration. In tests, mice avoided infrared light, and humans could interpret flickering codes and light directions, showcasing the lenses’ potential for practical applications.

“Our research opens up the potential for non-invasive wearable devices to give people super-vision,” says senior author Tian Xue, a neuroscientist at the University of Science and Technology of China. “There are many potential applications right away for this material. For example, flickering infrared light could be used to transmit information in security, rescue, encryption or anti-counterfeiting settings.”

The lenses use specially engineered nanoparticles that absorb invisible infrared light and convert it into light our eyes can see, typically in the 400 to 700 nanometer range. More specifically, the technology targets near-infrared light, which lies just beyond human vision, in the 800 to 1600 nanometer range.

In earlier studies, the team showed these particles could give mice infrared vision when injected directly into the eye. This time, they’ve achieved similar results using a much less invasive approach—by building the particles right into soft contact lenses.

To create the contact lenses, the team combined the nanoparticles with flexible, non-toxic polymers that are used in standard soft contact lenses. After showing that the contact lenses were non-toxic, they tested their function in both humans and mice.

They found that contact lens-wearing mice displayed behaviors suggesting that they could see infrared wavelengths. For example, when the mice were given the choice of a dark box and an infrared-illuminated box, contact-wearing mice chose the dark box whereas contact-less mice showed no preference. The mice also showed physiological signals of infrared vision: the pupils of contact-wearing mice constricted in the presence of infrared light, and brain imaging revealed that infrared light caused their visual processing centers to light up.

In humans, the infrared contact lenses enabled participants to accurately detect flashing morse code-like signals and to perceive the direction of incoming infrared light. “It’s totally clear cut: without the contact lenses, the subject cannot see anything, but when they put them on, they can clearly see the flickering of the infrared light,” said Xue.

“We also found that when the subject closes their eyes, they’re even better able to receive this flickering information, because near-infrared light penetrates the eyelid more effectively than visible light, so there is less interference from visible light.”

An additional tweak to the contact lenses allows users to differentiate between different spectra of infrared light by engineering the nanoparticles to color-code different infrared wavelengths. For example, infrared wavelengths of 980 nm were converted to blue light, wavelengths of 808 nm were converted to green light, and wavelengths of 1,532 nm were converted to red light. In addition to enabling wearers to perceive more detail within the infrared spectrum, these color-coding nanoparticles could be modified to help color blind people see wavelengths that they would otherwise be unable to detect.

“By converting red visible light into something like green visible light, this technology could make the invisible visible for color blind people,” says Xue.

Because the contact lenses have limited ability to capture fine details (due to their close proximity to the retina, which causes the converted light particles to scatter), the team also developed a wearable glass system using the same nanoparticle technology, which enabled participants to perceive higher-resolution infrared information.

Currently, the contact lenses are only able to detect infrared radiation projected from an LED light source, but the researchers are working to increase the nanoparticles’ sensitivity so that they can detect lower levels of infrared light.

“In the future, by working together with materials scientists and optical experts, we hope to make a contact lens with more precise spatial resolution and higher sensitivity,” says Xue.

For more information: Cell