Smart contact lenses may have taken another step towards becoming a reality with the invention of a very thin battery with a very unusual way of recharging. battery It’s only 0.2mm thick, or twice the width of a strand of hair, so it fits into a standard contact lens that’s about 0.5mm thick. The slim profile means it won’t interfere with comfort or fit, leaving you free to recharge your tears.
The battery is the work of Lee Seok-woo, a scientist and associate professor at the School of Electrical and Electronics Engineering at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, who was apparently inspired to start the project by the smart contact lenses featured in the film. Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol since 2011.
But it’s not just the incredibly thin battery cell that we’re excited about, it’s also how it’s powered and recharged. Lee told CNBC that the battery is powered by a “biocompatible saline solution” rather than a lithium-ion cell, as in phones and smartwatches, because it is not safe for a product such as contact lenses. Although the battery can be charged using a cable just like regular batteries, the layer of glucose around the lens reacts when the lens is immersed in a saline solution, causing it to charge. Anyone who currently wears contact lenses will already be familiar with the process of storing lenses this way, and it looks like a similar method could be used to charge future smart versions as well.
Charged with your tears
But that’s not the only way to charge lenses: According to Lee, they can also be charged right in front of your eyes, because our tears They contain glucose. That’s right, the more you cry, the more the battery in your smart contact lenses will recharge. When the time comes to launch, this is sure to provide an interesting advertising campaign. However, don’t expect it to become a power source for contact lenses anytime soon. The battery is currently under development and only lasts a few hours on a single charge. And its output power is not enough to support a wireless connection or power the built-in memory, which is necessary for smart glasses.
The development of a tiny, ultra-thin battery is another step forward towards creating a pair of smart contact lenses. We’ve been seeing and hearing about smart contact lens technology for years, including the first versions created with lens experts Bausch + Lomb and shown at CES 2021, as well as versions created for medical applications. It’s also not the first time scientists have claimed to be inspired by the Mission: Impossible movie, as a Nanjing University professor cited the same film when discussing a set of battery-free eye-tracking smartglasses earlier this year.
Source: Digital Trends

I am Garth Carter and I work at Gadget Onus. I have specialized in writing for the Hot News section, focusing on topics that are trending and highly relevant to readers. My passion is to present news stories accurately, in an engaging manner that captures the attention of my audience.