See far
distance just by winking your eyes. A team of engineers have designed a telescopic
contact lens that can switch between normal and magnefied vision.
The
Researchers at San Jose, California has
built a prototype pf lens that could one day help people with visual impairment
to see. The lenses might be particularly
useful with age-related macular degeneration, a debilitating condition in which
people gradually lose their central vision. It is the leading cause of visual
impairment and affect millions worldwide.
The contact
lens developed by Ford’s team is one millimeter thick. Researchers used
aluminum mirrors, fit tightly together, to create a ring-shaped telescope
embedded in the contact lens. The center of the lens allows for normal,
non-magnified vision. Its periphery,
where the telescope is located, magnifies images 2.8 times.
Switching between normal and
magnefied vision
Without the
glasses, the contact lenses superimpose both normal and magnified images. With
the glasses on, a liquid crystal shutter will switch open a window for normal
or telescopic vision? Researchers are working on a hands-free switch that uses
a low-power infrared LED to monitor when the user blinks with both eyes or winks
with one eye to activate one of the two functions.
The lenses of the 3D glasses contain liquid
crystals, which switch the two sections of the telescopic contact lens on and
off. The crystals change the way light is refracted onto polarized films embedded
in the contact lens, so that only light with a certain orientation, or
polarization, passes through the glasses to the contact lens, hitting either
the telescopic portion of the lens, or the area designed for normal vision.
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