The Centre of Microsystems Technology, imec’s associated laboratory at Ghent University, has developed a spherical curved LCD display that can be embedded in contact lenses.

The first step toward fully pixilated contact lens displays, this achievement is claimed to have potential applications in the medical and cosmetic sectors.

According to a statement, imec’s display overcomes the limitations of LED-based contact lens displays, which are limited to a few small pixels, as the LCD-based technology allows the use of the entire display surface.

By adapting the patterning process of the conductive layer, this technology enables applications with a broad range of pixel number and sizes, such as a one-pixel, fully covered contact lens acting as adaptable sunglasses, or a highly pixilated contact lens display.

The first prototype (pictured above) contains a patterned dollar sign, depicting the many cartoons that feature people or figures with dollars in their eyes.

It can only display rudimentary patterns, similar to an electronic pocket calculator. In the future, the researchers envision fully autonomous electronic contact lenses embedded with this display.

These next-generation solutions could be used for medical purposes, for example, to control the light transmission toward the retina in case of a damaged iris, or for cosmetic purposes such as an iris with a tunable colour.

Similarly, the display could also function as a head-up display, superimposing an image onto the user’s normal view.

‘Normally, flexible displays using liquid crystal cells are not designed to be formed into a new shape, especially not a spherical one. Thus, the main challenge was to create a very thin, spherically curved substrate with active layers that could withstand the extreme molding processes,’ said Jelle De Smet, the main researcher on the project. ‘Moreover, since we had to use very thin polymer films, their influence on the smoothness of the display had to be studied in detail. By using new kinds of conductive polymers and integrating them into a smooth spherical cell, we were able to fabricate a new LCD-based contact lens display.’