Scientists Will Soon Make It Easy to See in Darkness Through Night Vision Contact Lenses

Night vision contact lenses have long been something we have come across in fiction movies, tech that could be cool in the real world. A new research could achieve just that, allowing you to see in the dark without goggles on, just with your eyes. Engineers at the University of Michigan have found a new way to sense infrared light using two layers of an atom-thick layer of carbon, known as graphene. Unlike prior methods, the substance doesn’t have to be cooled to extremely low temperatures, and the device is very thin and small.

Scientists Will Soon Make It Easy to See in Darkness Through Night Vision Contact Lenses

The researchers behind this technological breakthrough are Ted Norris and Zhaohui Zhong. They faced major setbacks with graphene: it just isn’t very sensitive to light. “It’s a hundred to a thousand times lower than what a commercial device would require,” said Zhong in a statement.

Getting a bit technical… Instead of relying directly on the graphene’s sensitivity to light, the scientists decided to measure an electrical current running alongside the graphene layer. Their findings, published last month in Nature Nanotechnology, explain that as light hits the top graphene layer, it leaves a measurable impact on the flow of electricity below it. That produces an electrical signal that can display a night vision image.

“If we integrate it with a contact lens or other wearable electronics, it expands your vision, said Zhong. He added, “It provides you another way of interacting with your environment.” Even though the technology has already been scaled down (it’s smaller than a pinky nail in its current form), don’t expect night vision contact lenses in the next few years, however.

So, there you have it, gadgets we have seen in fiction films are now slowly making their way into the real world.