The concept of contact lens: 1 - LED microchip, 2 – power receiver and control circuitry, 3 - antenna, 4 – and interconnects, 5 - transparent polymer, 6 - system to project virtual images perceivable by the eye retina

It becomes closer the day when we can read the mail and watch movies with the closed eyes. A group of the U.S. and Finland scientists has conducted successful testing of the world's first contact lens with built-in display and power receiver on the rabbits. According to researchers, the rabbits did not have any side effects and the eyesight was not damaged.

The testing on mammals is a one of the steps of costly testing process of new drugs. The first version of the contact lenses contain only one illuminating LED-pixel, but display resolution will gradually increase, and in a couple of decades certainly will get to the HD level.

In order to ensure ultralow focal length, a lens itself has not been made of solid piece of material, but it consists of several adjoining concentric rings of small thickness, which are shaped in the cross-section of special prism profile so called a Fresnel lens. Thus, a person can focus look at the near and far objects, and a display is always in focus in the center of the lens.

It remains an open question of energy supply of such devices and data transfer interface. The scientists believe that all the necessary electronics, including a modem, antenna and a controller can be integrated into a millimetric control circuitry of the contact lens, and power supply will be provided by a remote power transmitter. During testing on the rabbits was used a contact lens with imprinted 5-mm antenna, which was powered by a 1.05 gigahertz radio transmitter, attached behind the ear of rabbit at a distance of 10 cm from the lens.

The lenses with HD-display should become a hit device, because they open the door for a number of applications, which should cardinally change our way of life.

The single-pixel lenses can also be useful. For example, they can be used as an alarm sensor of system for monitoring the parameters of life support - if a blood sugar of diabetic falls / rises to a dangerous level, then a signal will be sent. In addition, such displays will be used for the games, training athletes, military, as well for the people with the impaired hearing.

via New Scientist