Virtual vision on the cards

Engineers at the University of Washington have created a flexible, biologically safe contact lens imprinted with a circuit board and light emitting diodes (LEDs).

The technology was presented at the international conference of electrical and electronics engineers and has been heralded as a major step towards creating contact lenses that let wearers see virtual displays. 'Looking through a completed lens, you would see what the display is generating on the world outside,' said Babak Parviz, assistant professor of electrical engineering at the University of Washington.

Tested on rabbits with no adverse effects, the lenses contain a circuit built from layers of metal just a few nanometres thick as well as red LEDs which are only a third of a millimetre in length. The LEDs do not yet light up although the issue of delivering power to illuminate them looks set to be solved using a combination of radio-frequency power and solar cells on the outside of the lens. While a full virtual display is still a long way from being developed, a basic display with just a few pixels could be available fairly shortly according to Parviz.