5 ms·

Near-infrared spatiotemporal color vision enabled by upconversion contact lenses

70 points by ArnoVW 1y ago

ArnoVW 1y ago
Synopsis: Humans cannot perceive infrared light due to the physical thermodynamic properties of photon-detecting opsins. However, the capability to detect invisible multispectral infrared light with the naked eye is highly desirable. Here, we report wearable near-infrared (NIR) upconversion contact lenses (UCLs) with suitable optical properties, hydrophilicity, flexibility, and biocompatibility. Mice with UCLs could recognize NIR temporal and spatial information and make behavioral decisions. Furthermore, human participants wearing UCLs could discriminate NIR information, including temporal coding and spatial images. Notably, we have developed trichromatic UCLs (tUCLs), allowing humans to distinguish multiple spectra of NIR light, which can function as three primary colors, thereby achieving human NIR spatiotemporal color vision. Our research opens up the potential of wearable polymeric materials for non-invasive NIR vision, assisting humans in perceiving and transmitting temporal, spatial, and color dimensions of NIR light.
- wing-_-nuts 1y ago
  Yeah boss, I'm gonna need an ELI5 and potential use cases here
  - bobsmooth 1y ago
    Contact lens converts IR to visible light. Use cases include night vision and seeing if your tv remote is working.
    - Mindless2112 1y ago
      > However, detecting environmental NIR information in the natural conditions at night without NIR illumination still remains challenging, requiring further advancements in material science and optical design. Sadly no night vision contact lenses yet.
      - alejoar 1y ago
        Well, using an IR flashlight will light the path only for the contact lenses wearer, so still pretty cool and plausible.
    - potato3732842 1y ago
      Identifying things that aren't the right temperature a trillions of dollars problem spread across many industries. Though I think perhaps glasses are a better form factor for such tech.
      - chankstein38 1y ago
        This is what I was thinking. I already wear glasses. I wonder if there's a coating or something I can get applied that would add this.
  - avidiax 1y ago
    Seems like it would be good for marking cards. Make some cards reflect in the NIR. These contacts don't focus, however, so you can't get a clear perception of where the NIR is coming from.
  - trod1234 1y ago
    TL;DR You can see heat, and normally invisible IR signalling so you can see your universal TV remote light up and other things, potentially air or liquid currents as turbulent flow, when its sensitive enough (which it isn't at this point). The downsides they seem to ignore, include the literature showing light on the lower end Blue->UV, and light on the upper end to NIR, have direct impact on the endocrine system through light activated pathways in your eye. If you wear a contact lens, this light is blocked, the same goes for laser eye surgery where a artificial lens is used. John Ott, and Fritz Hollwich pioneered early studies on photobiology, and funding for it has been sparse despite Asia's myopia crisis; which statistics show generally increased dramatically shortly after blue LEDs came to market in the late 90s, and appear correlated with exposure.
- bediger4000 1y ago
  > Mice with UCLs Holy moly, putting contacts on mice?!?! It's just this side of impossible to put contacts on another human, and not much easier putting them on yourself. That's dedication to science.
  - vlachen 1y ago
    I dunno, I think a mouse would be far less likely to react by throwing hands than a human, plus, a mouse can be muzzled to protect against their primary weapon.
  - hellzbellz123 1y ago
    if you care about the animals well being and prospects then it becomes impossible. if you ignore the 'living being' factor then you could probably do this to anything. it is as simple as preventing movement ye?
RicoElectrico 1y ago
As I expected, it needs additional optics to be useful. Consider a sheet of fluorescent film you put on your eyeball. If there's an omnidirectional point source of light, it would excite the whole film virtually uniformly. Hence the upconversion contact lens needs to lie on some sort of a focal plane to be useful.
- fellowniusmonk 1y ago
  so would wearing these contacts paired with glasses to serve as a focal plain work?
unsupp0rted 1y ago
> However, the capability to detect invisible multispectral infrared light with the naked eye is highly desirable. What would be some practical (or fun) uses of this?
- drewbeck 1y ago
  I love this line. The confidence! As if humans have of course wanted IR visibility for ever.
  - kridsdale1 1y ago
    In the past, when armies faced each other on a front, activity halted at night. You gain a huge advantage if you can infiltrate to sabotage or assassinate the enemy camp in a way that you can see them but they can’t see you. See the Japanese foxhole assaults on various island fronts.
    - cryptonector 1y ago
      IIUC the contact lenses in TFA don't upconvert sufficiently long wavelength IR, so it's not going to be unaided night vision just quite yet.
      - LtdJorge 1y ago
        I think you'd just need a couple of IR sources, can be put in a headband like 2 flashlights, one on each side. Even if you don't see much, any improvements in pitch darkness would be great.
- potato3732842 1y ago
  Imagine being able to detect every situation where heat is a potential indicator of either problems or a system working as intended by simply looking at it. It would be a wildly valuable tool to any industry that does things. Currently such work is mostly done on a spot basis with IR temp guns and cameras. Imagine being able to see a failing conveyor bearing from across a facility or a low pressure tire as it rolls by.
metalman 1y ago
resolution is too low for any practical use case another article pointed out that it makes no difference if you have your eyes closed, as these things work behind your eyelids this is long way from bieng able to help you tell if your date is interested or what
dvh 1y ago
If we pass infrared through nonlinear material, will it produce distortion, which in turn will create higher harmonics which will be in the visible spectrum?
ipsum2 1y ago
.
- kadoban 1y ago
  This is a contact lens, not surgery.
amacbride 1y ago
Infravision! (For you D&D nerds out there.)
interestica 1y ago
I got fitted for contact lenses. The “fitting” pair were used to measure and adjust. They didn’t have an actual prescription. However, they gave me super-human magnified vision for anything closer than a foot to my face. It was clearer than anything that could be achieved with lenses/magnification outside the eye. It was like having microscopes for eyes. I seriously just wanted to get a pair for fine vision tasks like soldering. It made me wonder what type of other “vision augmentation” things might be doable with existing tech. There’s probably a market for devices like this even for those with normal/perfect vision.
- blacksmith_tb 1y ago
  Sounds fun, but various kinds of jeweler's loupes and magnifying glasses seem less invasive then needing to stick the lenses directly in your eyes? I wore contacts in my 20s, but don't miss all the mess these days.
  - Calwestjobs 1y ago
    or just webcam + display ;) seem you two too old lol.
    - Fr0styMatt88 1y ago
      One of the upcoming rumoured new Apple Vision Pro accessibility features will apparently be providing a magnified vision area. Quest 3 has the passthrough API now that lets apps access the camera feeds as well. I’m eagerly awaiting Meta or a third-party to implement something similar. There’s also other specialist devices for the vision impaired like myself, but as far as I know none of them give you magnified STEREO vision (although maybe the new eSight does, I’m not sure tbh). There’s also bioptic glasses, but they’re chunky. Honestly give me glasses with micro-OLED displays like the viewfinder on the Sony DSLR cameras attached to a top-tier phone camera sensor and lens construction; my phone zooms in amazingly far yet is thinner than any bioptic or monocular I’ve ever seen. I’ve looked into building this kind of thing a few times but I think it might be above the components I can get my hands on.
mncharity 1y ago
> Humans cannot perceive infrared light due to the physical thermodynamic properties of photon-detecting opsins. Seeing near-NIR without pointing a laser at your eye is interesting, but "cannot perceive"? It's dim, yes. But there are perception reports well beyond 1000 nm (like 1.3 or 1.5 um). People see NIR ophthalmoscopes. I fuzzily recall a DIY attempt to wear a NIR bandpass filter, to make bright day into dark-adapted near-NIR night. And two-photon sensitivity[1] can level off the single-photon sensitivity log curve above 900 nm. [1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0042698924000488 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S004269892...
- Calwestjobs 1y ago
  this can be used in future by car drivers. illuminating road in front by IR light, which is invisible to ordinary human, so you do not disturb people, animals with visible light of headlights or it can be made into display, you project IR image onto contact lenses, which converts that into visible light. if particle size is small enough. im not sure about "efficiency" of such lens, we would need more watts to display something on this lens than we would need to project direct to eye. so im not sure if that difference is big enough to not be suitable for wearables or not.
  - precommunicator 1y ago
    That's kind of already a thing in cars: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automotive_night_vision https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automotive_night_vision
m463 1y ago
I'm reminded of the Radio Shack infrared sensor card I have somewhere. It works like those glow-in-the-dark stickers that you charge up under a light, then take into a dark room to glow. Except the IR card would not glow until hit by infrared, like from your TV remote. Then it would light up red as the "charged up" energy would kick infrared up into the visible spectrum. (or probably vice versa)

70 points by ArnoVW 1y ago

Synopsis: Humans cannot perceive infrared light due to the physical thermodynamic properties of photon-detecting opsins. However, the capability to detect invisible multispectral infrared light with the naked eye is highly desirable. Here, we report wearable near-infrared (NIR) upconversion contact lenses (UCLs) with suitable optical properties, hydrophilicity, flexibility, and biocompatibility. Mice with UCLs could recognize NIR temporal and spatial information and make behavioral decisions. Furthermore, human participants wearing UCLs could discriminate NIR information, including temporal coding and spatial images. Notably, we have developed trichromatic UCLs (tUCLs), allowing humans to distinguish multiple spectra of NIR light, which can function as three primary colors, thereby achieving human NIR spatiotemporal color vision. Our research opens up the potential of wearable polymeric materials for non-invasive NIR vision, assisting humans in perceiving and transmitting temporal, spatial, and color dimensions of NIR light.

wing-_-nuts 1y ago
Yeah boss, I'm gonna need an ELI5 and potential use cases here
- bobsmooth 1y ago
  Contact lens converts IR to visible light. Use cases include night vision and seeing if your tv remote is working.
  - Mindless2112 1y ago
    > However, detecting environmental NIR information in the natural conditions at night without NIR illumination still remains challenging, requiring further advancements in material science and optical design. Sadly no night vision contact lenses yet.
    - alejoar 1y ago
      Well, using an IR flashlight will light the path only for the contact lenses wearer, so still pretty cool and plausible.
  - potato3732842 1y ago
    Identifying things that aren't the right temperature a trillions of dollars problem spread across many industries. Though I think perhaps glasses are a better form factor for such tech.
    - chankstein38 1y ago
      This is what I was thinking. I already wear glasses. I wonder if there's a coating or something I can get applied that would add this.
- avidiax 1y ago
  Seems like it would be good for marking cards. Make some cards reflect in the NIR. These contacts don't focus, however, so you can't get a clear perception of where the NIR is coming from.
- trod1234 1y ago
  TL;DR You can see heat, and normally invisible IR signalling so you can see your universal TV remote light up and other things, potentially air or liquid currents as turbulent flow, when its sensitive enough (which it isn't at this point). The downsides they seem to ignore, include the literature showing light on the lower end Blue->UV, and light on the upper end to NIR, have direct impact on the endocrine system through light activated pathways in your eye. If you wear a contact lens, this light is blocked, the same goes for laser eye surgery where a artificial lens is used. John Ott, and Fritz Hollwich pioneered early studies on photobiology, and funding for it has been sparse despite Asia's myopia crisis; which statistics show generally increased dramatically shortly after blue LEDs came to market in the late 90s, and appear correlated with exposure.
bediger4000 1y ago
> Mice with UCLs Holy moly, putting contacts on mice?!?! It's just this side of impossible to put contacts on another human, and not much easier putting them on yourself. That's dedication to science.
- vlachen 1y ago
  I dunno, I think a mouse would be far less likely to react by throwing hands than a human, plus, a mouse can be muzzled to protect against their primary weapon.
- hellzbellz123 1y ago
  if you care about the animals well being and prospects then it becomes impossible. if you ignore the 'living being' factor then you could probably do this to anything. it is as simple as preventing movement ye?

RicoElectrico 1y ago

As I expected, it needs additional optics to be useful. Consider a sheet of fluorescent film you put on your eyeball. If there's an omnidirectional point source of light, it would excite the whole film virtually uniformly. Hence the upconversion contact lens needs to lie on some sort of a focal plane to be useful.

fellowniusmonk 1y ago
so would wearing these contacts paired with glasses to serve as a focal plain work?

unsupp0rted 1y ago

> However, the capability to detect invisible multispectral infrared light with the naked eye is highly desirable. What would be some practical (or fun) uses of this?

drewbeck 1y ago
I love this line. The confidence! As if humans have of course wanted IR visibility for ever.
- kridsdale1 1y ago
  In the past, when armies faced each other on a front, activity halted at night. You gain a huge advantage if you can infiltrate to sabotage or assassinate the enemy camp in a way that you can see them but they can’t see you. See the Japanese foxhole assaults on various island fronts.
  - cryptonector 1y ago
    IIUC the contact lenses in TFA don't upconvert sufficiently long wavelength IR, so it's not going to be unaided night vision just quite yet.
    - LtdJorge 1y ago
      I think you'd just need a couple of IR sources, can be put in a headband like 2 flashlights, one on each side. Even if you don't see much, any improvements in pitch darkness would be great.
potato3732842 1y ago
Imagine being able to detect every situation where heat is a potential indicator of either problems or a system working as intended by simply looking at it. It would be a wildly valuable tool to any industry that does things. Currently such work is mostly done on a spot basis with IR temp guns and cameras. Imagine being able to see a failing conveyor bearing from across a facility or a low pressure tire as it rolls by.

metalman 1y ago

resolution is too low for any practical use case another article pointed out that it makes no difference if you have your eyes closed, as these things work behind your eyelids this is long way from bieng able to help you tell if your date is interested or what

dvh 1y ago

If we pass infrared through nonlinear material, will it produce distortion, which in turn will create higher harmonics which will be in the visible spectrum?

ipsum2 1y ago

kadoban 1y ago
This is a contact lens, not surgery.

amacbride 1y ago

Infravision! (For you D&D nerds out there.)

interestica 1y ago

I got fitted for contact lenses. The “fitting” pair were used to measure and adjust. They didn’t have an actual prescription. However, they gave me super-human magnified vision for anything closer than a foot to my face. It was clearer than anything that could be achieved with lenses/magnification outside the eye. It was like having microscopes for eyes. I seriously just wanted to get a pair for fine vision tasks like soldering. It made me wonder what type of other “vision augmentation” things might be doable with existing tech. There’s probably a market for devices like this even for those with normal/perfect vision.

blacksmith_tb 1y ago
Sounds fun, but various kinds of jeweler's loupes and magnifying glasses seem less invasive then needing to stick the lenses directly in your eyes? I wore contacts in my 20s, but don't miss all the mess these days.
- Calwestjobs 1y ago
  or just webcam + display ;) seem you two too old lol.
  - Fr0styMatt88 1y ago
    One of the upcoming rumoured new Apple Vision Pro accessibility features will apparently be providing a magnified vision area. Quest 3 has the passthrough API now that lets apps access the camera feeds as well. I’m eagerly awaiting Meta or a third-party to implement something similar. There’s also other specialist devices for the vision impaired like myself, but as far as I know none of them give you magnified STEREO vision (although maybe the new eSight does, I’m not sure tbh). There’s also bioptic glasses, but they’re chunky. Honestly give me glasses with micro-OLED displays like the viewfinder on the Sony DSLR cameras attached to a top-tier phone camera sensor and lens construction; my phone zooms in amazingly far yet is thinner than any bioptic or monocular I’ve ever seen. I’ve looked into building this kind of thing a few times but I think it might be above the components I can get my hands on.

mncharity 1y ago

> Humans cannot perceive infrared light due to the physical thermodynamic properties of photon-detecting opsins. Seeing near-NIR without pointing a laser at your eye is interesting, but "cannot perceive"? It's dim, yes. But there are perception reports well beyond 1000 nm (like 1.3 or 1.5 um). People see NIR ophthalmoscopes. I fuzzily recall a DIY attempt to wear a NIR bandpass filter, to make bright day into dark-adapted near-NIR night. And two-photon sensitivity[1] can level off the single-photon sensitivity log curve above 900 nm. [1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0042698924000488 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S004269892...

Calwestjobs 1y ago
this can be used in future by car drivers. illuminating road in front by IR light, which is invisible to ordinary human, so you do not disturb people, animals with visible light of headlights or it can be made into display, you project IR image onto contact lenses, which converts that into visible light. if particle size is small enough. im not sure about "efficiency" of such lens, we would need more watts to display something on this lens than we would need to project direct to eye. so im not sure if that difference is big enough to not be suitable for wearables or not.
- precommunicator 1y ago
  That's kind of already a thing in cars: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automotive_night_vision https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automotive_night_vision

m463 1y ago

I'm reminded of the Radio Shack infrared sensor card I have somewhere. It works like those glow-in-the-dark stickers that you charge up under a light, then take into a dark room to glow. Except the IR card would not glow until hit by infrared, like from your TV remote. Then it would light up red as the "charged up" energy would kick infrared up into the visible spectrum. (or probably vice versa)