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Short wavelength visible light

Ronald Rabbetts describes a new British Standards technical report which helps to clarify the definition of short wavelength visible light

Last year, British Standards published an ISO Technical Report; PD ISO/TR 20772:2018 Ophthalmic optics – Spectacle lenses – Short wavelength visible solar radiation and the eye. Although not explicitly stated, the reason for writing the report was to try to evaluate whether or not radiation in the wavelength band 380 to 400nm and just above was likely to be particularly detrimental to the eye. 380nm is the wavelength chosen as the upper wavelength limit for UV-A for spectacle lenses and sunglasses while nearly all other applications use 400nm, eg medical physics, physics and Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultraviolet). As a consequence, many sunglasses are labelled UV400, while Zeiss Vision has recently claimed that all its resin lenses have been treated to absorb up to 400nm.1,2

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