[HN Gopher] Near-infrared spatiotemporal color vision enabled by...
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Near-infrared spatiotemporal color vision enabled by upconversion
contact lenses
Author : ArnoVW
Score : 51 points
Date : 2025-05-22 15:30 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.cell.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.cell.com)
| ArnoVW wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Yeah boss, I'm gonna need an ELI5 and potential use cases here
| bobsmooth wrote:
| Contact lens converts IR to visible light. Use cases include
| night vision and seeing if your tv remote is working.
| Mindless2112 wrote:
| > _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 wrote:
| Well, using an IR flashlight will light the path only for
| the contact lenses wearer, so still pretty cool and
| plausible.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| bediger4000 wrote:
| > 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 wrote:
| 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.
| RicoElectrico wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| so would wearing these contacts paired with glasses to serve as
| a focal plain work?
| unsupp0rted wrote:
| > 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 wrote:
| I love this line. The confidence! As if humans have of course
| wanted IR visibility for ever.
| kridsdale1 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| hollerith wrote:
| But the OP is about _near_ -infrared (NIR) light. Sensitive
| instruments for detecting NIR can only detect objects hotter
| than 440 deg F (according to an LLM I just consulted) and
| even then longer wavelengths are the preferred wavelengths
| for detection: NIR doesn't start becoming the preferred
| wavelength till the object gets up to at least 800 deg F.
|
| The sun emits tons of NIR, so if this tech has a practical
| application, I'm guessing it is in detecting objects outdoors
| during the daytime that look distinctive in NIR and do not
| look distinctive in visible light, e.g., maybe military
| hardware covered by fabric or camouflage netting.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| >NIR doesn't start becoming the preferred wavelength till
| the object gets up to at least 800 deg F.
|
| My understanding is that due to the relative bell curve of
| emitted wavelengths a hot object should still look "funny"
| in the same way that a cherry red piece of iron still looks
| like iron, just different. Is that not true for NIR?
| hollerith wrote:
| I can't understand the question.
|
| But the spectrum of a hot object is _not_ a bell curve.
| Specifically, there is a sharp cut-off such that there
| are basically no photons with wavelength below the cut-
| off. An incandescent light bulb of the type people used
| in houses in the 1980s and before for example produces a
| very small amount of UVA, but basically no UVB, UVC,
| x-rays or lower wavelengths.
| kridsdale1 wrote:
| Military use.
| readthenotes1 wrote:
| Better vision at night, or during cloudy or Dusty conditions.
| Every truck driver should have them.
|
| Every search&rescue or police officer should have them although
| I suspect for firefighters it might not help.
|
| I wouldn't at all be surprised if Mr money mustache can make a
| frugality case to wearing ir contact lenses instead of having
| lights on at night.
|
| Instead of splashing people with UV paint and using black
| lights, just party in the dark.
|
| As people age, one of the common complaints is the degradation
| of low light vision. This will help some.
|
| At least some hunters I know have night vision goggles for
| going after wild hogs. They could just wear the contacts...
| metalman wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| .
| kadoban wrote:
| This is a contact lens, not surgery.
| amacbride wrote:
| Infravision! (For you D&D nerds out there.)
| interestica wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| or just webcam + display ;) seem you two too old lol.
| mncharity wrote:
| > 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/S004269892...
| Calwestjobs wrote:
| 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.
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