Night vision contacts could allow us to see in the dark

Would you like to see in the dark, especially when you get up from bed in the middle of the night and you are too sleepy to turn the light on? Walking sleepy with the light turned off can lead to pain, because you can hit something. Imagine what happens next. You scream, your wife wakes up scared and neighbours start to think that a crime has been commited, so they call the police. What a night…

Night vision contacts could be the key in the near future. University of Michigan researchers have created a super-thin material which can detect infrared light. This material is called graphene, and is a single layer of carbon atoms that can sense the infrared spectrum. So, this graphene will be installed on night vision contacts. Zhaohui Zhong, the assistant professor of electrical engineering and computer science, and also the lead researcher on the project said:

Our work pioneered a new way to detect light. We envision that people will be able to adopt this same mechanism in other material and device platforms. If we integrate it with a contact lens or other wearable electronics, it expands your vision. It provides you another way of interacting with your environment.

Moreover, in the present, devices with night vision requires a built-in cooling unit to work properly. But, these night vision contacts won’t need something like this, because the material will work at the room temperature. We don’t know if these night vision contacts could affect our eyesight, but they might be useful in some cases.

What do you think? Would you wear night vision contacts?