New contacts allow you to see infrared light – even your eyes closed
Straight out of science fiction, these contact lenses convert infrared light into visible light that humans can see
People who have tested a new type of designer contact objective could see flashing infrared signals from a light source.
Humans have a new way of seeing infrared light, without the need for clumsy night vision glasses. The researchers established the first contact lenses to transmit an infrared vision – and the devices work even when people have their eyes closed.
The team behind the invention, led by scientists from the University of Sciences and Technology of China (USTC) in Hefei, gave the objectives their power by instilling nanoparticles which convert the close infrared light into the visible and shorter light of the range of shorter wave. Researchers estimate that the objectives cost about $ 200 per pair to be won.
Technology, which was Detailed in the cell on May 22“Is incredibly cool, just like something of a science fiction film,” said Xiaomin Li, a chemist at Fudan University in Shanghai, China. He opens up “new possibilities to understand the world around us,” he adds.
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For the advantages and disadvantages
The close infrared light is just outside the range of wavelengths that humans can normally detect. Some animals may feel infrared light, but probably not good enough to form images.
Night vision glasses allow humans to see infrared radiation, but they are bulky and require a power source to work. The new objectives avoid these limitations while offering richer multi-color infrared images with regard to night vision glasses, which work on a monochrome green scale, generally do not do it.
However, the objectives have their own gaps. Because the integrated nanoparticles disperse the light, the images created by the lenses are blurred. The team partially corrected this by putting technology in glasses with additional lenses that redirect light. In addition, unlike night vision glasses, which amplify light to detect low -level infrared signals, lenses allow users to see only intense infrared signals, such as those issued by diodes emitting light (LED).
For these reasons, some criticisms do not think that the objectives will prove useful. “I cannot think of any application that would not be fundamentally simpler with infrared glasses,” explains Glen Jeffery, neuroscientist at the University College London who specializes in ocular health. “The evolution avoided this for a good reason.”
Nevertheless, the authors believe that their lenses can be still optimized and predict several possible uses for the invention. For example, carriers could read anti-container marks which emit infrared wavelengths but are otherwise invisible to the human eye, explains the co-author Yuqian Ma, a neuroscientist at USTC.
Li, which was not involved in the work, offers another possibility: lenses can be worn by doctors performing near infrared fluorescence surgery, to detect and eliminate cancer lesions “without counting traditional bulky equipment”.
'An exhilarating moment'
To create contact lenses, scientists have built Previous research in which they gave an infrared vision of mice by injecting nanoparticles into animal retinas. This time, they adopted a less invasive approach and added nanoparticles in rare metals, notably YTTTERBIUM and ERBIUM, a soup of polymer construction blocks to form soft lenses, then tested them for safety.
The main challenge, known as MA, was to wrap enough nanoparticles in lenses to convert enough infrared light into visible light detectable, without differently modifying the optical properties of objectives, including their transparency.
The mice tests have shown that animals wearing lenses tend to choose a dark box that was considered “safe” on infrared lighting, while mice without the lenses showed no preference for one or the other box. Humans carrying the objectives could see the infrared light flickering with a LED well enough to collect the signals of Morse code and feel from what direction the signals came. The performance of the lenses even improved when the participants closed their eyes, because the close infrared light easily penetrates the eyelids, while the visible light, which could have interfere with the image formation, the fact to a lesser extent.
“Seeing people wearing contact lenses and successfully seeing infrared flashes was undoubtedly an exhilarating moment,” explains Ma.
The team now plans to find ways to waste more nanoparticles in lenses and hopes to develop particles that can convert light with higher efficiency, to improve the sensitivity of technology. “We have overcome the physiological limits of human vision, as if it opened a whole new window on the world,” explains Ma.
This article is reproduced with permission and was first publication May 22, 2025.
