Researchers develop photochromic contact lenses

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MIT's Technology Review reports Jackie Ying, director of the Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology in Singapore as having developed an UV-responsive, or photochromic, lenses that darken when exposed to ultraviolet light, protecting the eyes against the sun's damaging rays, and return to normal in UV's absence.

The lenses contain a novel polymer laced with an intricate network of nano-sized tunnels that can be filled with dyes. Early studies have demonstrated that the technology performs faster than the transition sunglasses on the market today. The investigators hope to have photochromic contact lenses commercially available within a year.

Nanotechnology refers to the manipulation of matter at the molecular level and is measured by a nanometre scale that is between one and 100 nanometres. A sheet of paper is about 100,000 nanometres thick.

Posted in: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, singapore, Technology