We’ve all seen the sunglasses that magically darken in the presence of light; those glasses are coated with a substance that reacts to Ultraviolet (UV) Light. While this technology is tried and true on larger surfaces like lenses, it does not work well on smaller, flimsy surfaces like contact lenses.
As a result, contact lens wearers have had to settle for one of two solutions: tinted lenses or sunglasses worn over the contacts. Unfortunately, both of these solutions have drawbacks, or defeat the reason for wearing contacts in the first place.
Enter Jackie Ying, director of the Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (IBN) in Singapore. Dr. Ying has developed a technique for embedding UV sensitive dyes into the flimsy lenses as opposed to coating them. The lenses behave just like their exteriorly worn counterparts. They darken in the sunlight, and go back to clear when the wearer is out of the light: automatically darkening contact lenses.
No muss, no fuss. The eyes have it.
Speed performance is crucial for transition eyewear, particularly for adjusting from high to low levels of light. “When your car suddenly goes into a tunnel, the amount of light is very dim, so you need your lenses to transform back immediately,” says (Team Leader, Edwin) Chow. While this can take minutes with transition sunglasses, he says, “Our response time is 10 to 20 seconds.”
(technologyreview)
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