Paper No 3.1: A Contact Lens With Built‐In Display: Science Fiction or Not?

Abstract

Recent progress in microsystems integration technology such as ultra-thin chip packaging, stretchable interconnections, thin-film batteries and organic photovoltaics makes it feasible to incorporate various electronic components and transducers in extremely confined spaces and inside flexible or conformable objects. Can this ultimately lead to a genuine display in a contact lens? The major outstanding issues are reviewed.

Progress toward a liquid crystal contact lens display

“…Hence, an additional optical structure should refocus the incident light onto the retina. Possible solutions by placing a lens‐like structure behind each pixel such as Fresnel zone plates or LC lenses have been suggested, but simulations indicate that such a discrete approach will not result in a satisfactory resolution on the retina. Likely, an integral approach using, for example, holographic components is necessary, but this will require further research.…”

The New Digital Natives

“…At the moment, the technology is only available to selected users and we expect a quick adoption in the coming years once the technology is commercialised. An advancement over this technology is Digital Contact Lenses [294] whereby the glasses are replaced by contact lenses. However the technology is still in its infancy and will take some time before it matures.…”

A laser emitting contact lens for eye tracking

“…As a result, a variety of electronic contact lenses have been proposed in the last two decades. Due to the nature of the lens, the applications concern mainly wearable smart sensors for health diagnostics 10,11 , the correction of vision or refractive errors 12 , gaze tracking 13 or displays [14][15][16][17] . Some wireless contact lenses have been tested on persons (e.g.…”