{"id":214512,"date":"2025-05-22T17:03:19","date_gmt":"2025-05-22T22:03:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/05\/infrared-contact-lenses-allow-people-to-see-in-the-dark-even-with-their-eyes-closed"},"modified":"2025-05-22T17:03:19","modified_gmt":"2025-05-22T22:03:19","slug":"infrared-contact-lenses-allow-people-to-see-in-the-dark-even-with-their-eyes-closed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/05\/infrared-contact-lenses-allow-people-to-see-in-the-dark-even-with-their-eyes-closed","title":{"rendered":"Infrared contact lenses allow people to see in the dark, even with their eyes closed"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/infrared-contact-lenses-allow-people-to-see-in-the-dark-even-with-their-eyes-closed.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Neuroscientists and materials scientists have created contact lenses that enable infrared vision in both humans and mice by converting infrared light into visible light. Unlike infrared night vision goggles, the contact lenses, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cell.com\/cell\/fulltext\/S0092-8674(25)00454-4\" target=\"_blank\">described in the journal<\/a> <i>Cell<\/i>, do not require a power source\u2014and they enable the wearer to perceive multiple infrared wavelengths. Because they\u2019re transparent, users can see both infrared and visible light simultaneously, though infrared vision was enhanced when participants had their eyes closed.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur research opens up the potential for noninvasive wearable devices to give people super-vision,\u201d says senior author Tian Xue, a neuroscientist at the University of Science and Technology of China. \u201cThere are many potential applications right away for this material. For example, flickering infrared light could be used to transmit information in security, rescue, encryption or anti-counterfeiting settings.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The contact lens technology uses nanoparticles that absorb infrared light and convert it into wavelengths that are visible to mammalian eyes (e.g., <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/electromagnetic+radiation\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">electromagnetic radiation<\/a> in the 400\u2013700 nm range). The nanoparticles specifically enable the detection of \u201cnear-infrared light,\u201d which is infrared light in the 800\u20111600 nm range, just beyond what humans can already see.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Neuroscientists and materials scientists have created contact lenses that enable infrared vision in both humans and mice by converting infrared light into visible light. Unlike infrared night vision goggles, the contact lenses, described in the journal Cell, do not require a power source\u2014and they enable the wearer to perceive multiple infrared wavelengths. Because they\u2019re transparent, [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":603,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,1625,4,1492,1977],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-214512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-encryption","category-nanotechnology","category-security","category-wearables"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/603"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=214512"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214512\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=214512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=214512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=214512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}