Augmented Reality Contact Lenses Developed Through 3D Printing

Intelligent contact lenses, like conventional lenses, can be placed on the eye and are able to provide the wearer with information. Currently, such lenses are mainly being researched in the medical field for disease diagnosis. Several companies, including Google, have already researched AR contact lenses, but there are still some technical hurdles to overcome. Now, researchers at the National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST) in South Korea have teamed up with the Smart 3D Printing Research Team at the Korea Electrotechnology Research Institute (KERI) to develop contact lenses that enable augmented reality (AR) through 3D printing.

The technology involves printing micro-patterns onto a lens display. It uses the physical phenomenon of the meniscus, meaning the curvature of the surface of a liquid caused by surface tension: in this case the liquid is the printing ink. To manufacture the AR contact lenses, electrochromic monitors are supplied with low current. They make the lenses in the color “Pure Prussian Blue”, as the material ensures fast color contrast and color change, as well as being more cost efficient.

Menisci can be concave (left), as is the case for water-based fluids, or convex (left), as for mercury in glass. The researchers used the meniscus of the ink to print micropatterns (Photo credit: jleedev on Wikimedia Commons)

The most important application of AR contact lenses will probably be navigation. This means that the augmented reality technology is located directly on the eyes of the wearer of the lenses, navigating them through the streets. Moreover, in the future, users could play games like Pokémon Go not only on their smartphone or tablet, but directly with the AR contact lenses. Dr. Seol Seung-Kwon of KERI explained, “Our achievement is to develop a 3D printing technology that can print functional micro-patterns on a non-planar substrate to commercialize advanced smart contact lenses for AR.” He added, “It will greatly contribute to the miniaturization and versatility of AR devices.”