High-tech contact lenses could help counteract color blindness, according to new research from Tel Aviv University.
A pair of scientists in Israel have incorporated ultra-thin optical devices known as metasurfaces into off-the-shelf contacts to correct deuteranomaly—a sub-type of red-green color blindness.
“Problems with distinguishing red from green interrupt simple daily routines such as deciding whether a banana is ripe,” researcher Sharon Karepov said in a statement. “Our contact lenses … create a customized, compact, and durable way to address these deficiencies.”
In individuals with this condition, the eye’s green-sensitive cones are malfunctioning, making it difficult to discriminate between small differences in hues of red, orange, yellow, and green.
And while scientists have known for decades how to fix the frustration, they’ve never quite worked out a comfortable or compact solution.
“Glasses based on this correction concept are commercially available,” Karepov explained. They are, however, “significantly bulkier” than contact lenses.
So, researchers turned to metasurfaces: artificially fabricated thin films designed with specific optical properties. Made of nanoscale gold ellipses, they can be engineered to achieve specific effects on the light transmitted through them.
The team even found a way to get metasurfaces—typically created on flat surfaces—onto a curved contact lens.
The added metasurfaces improved color perception up to a factor of 10, and all but restored lost visual contrast.
“Because the proposed optical element is ultrathin and can be embedded into any rigid contact lens,” Karepov said, “both deuteranomaly and other vision disorders such as refractive errors can be treated within a single contact lens.”
A full report was published recently in The Optical Society (OSA) journal Optics Letters.
More on Geek.com:
- Eye Doctor Shares Graphic Photos to Warn Against Sleeping in Contacts
- Doctors Find Four Bees Living Inside Woman’s Eye
- Smart Eye Implant Uses Magnets to Manage Glaucoma
from Geek.com https://ift.tt/38ndGw3
via IFTTT
0 comments:
Post a Comment