An international team of researchers have
created the first telescopic contact lens; a
contact lens that, when it’s equipped, gives
you the power to zoom your vision almost
three times. Yes, this is the first ever
example of a bionic eye that effectively
gives you Superman-like eagle-eye vision.
As you can see in the photo above, the
telescopic contact lens has two very distinct
regions. The center of the lens allows light
to pass straight through, providing normal
vision. The outside edge, however, acts as a
telescope capable of magnifying your sight
by 2.8x. This is about the same as looking
through a 100mm lens on a DSLR. For
comparison, a pair of bird-watching
binoculars might have a magnification of
15x. The examples shown in the image
below give you a good idea of what a 2.8x
optical zoom would look like in real life.
The main breakthrough is that this
telescopic contact lens is just 1.17mm thick,
allowing it to be comfortably worn. Other
attempts at granting telescopic vision have
included: a 4.4mm-thick contact lens (too
thick for real-world use), telescopic
spectacles (cumbersome and ugly), and
most recently a telescopic lens implanted
into the eye itself. The latter is currently the
best option currently available, but it
requires surgery and the image quality isn’t
excellent.
To create a 1.17mm-thick telescope, the
researchers — led by Joseph Ford of UCSD
and Eric Tremblay of EPFL — had to be
rather creative. The light that will be
magnified enters the edge of the contact
lens, is bounced around four times inside
the lens using patterned aluminium mirrors,
and then beamed to the edge of the retina
at the back of your eyeball. The mirrors
magnify the image 2.8 times, but also
correct for chromatic aberration, resulting in
a surprisingly high fidelity image. To switch
between normal and telescopic vision, the
central (normal, unmagnified) region of the
contact lens has a polarizing filter in front of
it — and then the wearer equips a pair of
3D TV spectacles. By switching the polarizing
state of the spectacles (a pair of active,
liquid crystal Samsung 3D specs in this
case), the user can choose between normal
and magnified vision.
In case you were wondering, these solutions
all primarily exist for one reason: To help
restore sight to people with age-related
macular degeneration. AMD damages the
high-resolution fovea at the center of the
retina, but generally the low-resolution
outer region (perifovea) still works. Without
the fovea, people with AMD can’t make out
fine details, such as type on a page. These
telescopic spectacles, lenses, and implants
focus light onto this outer region, giving
people with AMD the ability to make out
these details.
The current telescopic contact lens is made
out of PMMA, a gas-impermeable polymer
that old, uncomfortable contact lenses used
to be made of. To bring their lens to
market, the researchers will need to switch
over to rigid gas permeable (RGP) polymers,
which modern, comfortable contact lenses
are made from. While these telescopic
lenses are obviously intended for people
who suffer from AMD, there’s nothing to
prevent a healthy person from wearing
them and achieving better-than-human
(superhuman?) vision.

nice

hope no side effects