Scientists have made contact lenses that let you see in the dark using near-infrared

University of Science and Technology of China has come up with a very clever invention that uses nanoparticles which absorb infrared light.

Scientists have made contact lenses that let you see in the dark using near-infrared
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TL;DR: Scientists at the University of Science and Technology of China have developed nanoparticle-infused contact lenses that enable night vision without the need for any power source. These lenses allow the wearer to see in the dark, and may also be used for other purposes, including potentially correcting color blindness.

Mention night vision and this will likely conjure up images of big, clunky goggles of some kind, but scientists have just developed a far more elegant solution in the form of contact lenses that allow people to see in the dark using infrared light.

The University of Science and Technology of China (Image Credit: USTC Global on X.com)
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The University of Science and Technology of China (Image Credit: USTC Global on X.com)

This is a creation of the University of Science and Technology of China, where experiments with nanoparticles led to the development of the technology.

The contact lenses in question are made with nanoparticles which absorb infrared light, and as Phys.org, which spotted this invention, points out, specifically this is near-infrared light (NIR), only just beyond the spectrum of what people can already see.

The nanoparticles infused in the lenses make the NIR in the 400nm to 700nm range visible to human eyes (and mice in earlier experiments), giving the capability to effectively see in the dark.

The additional innovation here is that there's no need for any kind of power supply to pull this off, the contact lenses give the wearer this ability with no need for anything extra.

Using infrared light also means people can see even with their eyes closed, because the NIR penetrates the thin layer of skin that is the eyelid. Indeed, the quality of the infrared vision is improved when the wearer's eyes are closed, because there's no interference from visible light rays.

Senior author of the study, neuroscientist Tian Xue, explains:

"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.

"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."

As well as extending our ability to perceive more of the infrared spectrum, another potential use here could be correcting color-blind vision. This is because the lenses can be made to color code different infrared wavelengths, and so the same could be done for visible wavelengths that a color-blind person can't normally see.