Printing of wirelessly rechargeable solid-state supercapacitors for soft, smart contact lenses with continuous operations
- Journal:
- Science Advances
- Published:
- DOI:
- 10.1126/sciadv.aay0764
- Affiliations:
- 6
- Authors:
- 7
Research Highlight
Non-contact charging of smart contact lenses
© isayildiz/Getty
Smart contact lenses that don’t need to be powered by batteries could find use in a wide range of applications including monitoring the wearer’s health.
The field of wearable electronics is taking off, with many wearable devices being developed. In particular, smart contact lenses could be used to project images into a person’s field of vision and, if fitted with sensors, could monitor biomarkers in tears. But a big hurdle has been finding a way to power them that doesn’t involve using wires to connect them to batteries.
Now, a team led by researchers from the Institute for Basic Science in South Korea has developed soft smart contact lenses that can be recharged wirelessly. The contact lenses use a built-in supercapacitor to store energy and printable inks as electrodes and electrolyte.
In the future, the contact lenses could provide a painless, unobtrusive way to monitor blood sugar levels in people with diabetes.
References
- Science Advances 5, eaay0764 (2019). doi: 10.1126/sciadv.aay0764