A traditional eyeglass lens is made to a certain prescribed thickness to bend light so that it focuses on the eye’s retina, which for wearers of bifocal or trifocal glasses means they must tilt their head up or down for clear or near vision. But imagine a pair of glasses that are smart enough that they know where you are looking and adjust their focus automatically.
Now optical scientists at the University of Arizona’s Optical Sciences Center and e-Vision, a subsidiary company of The Egg Factory, are developing electronic glasses that bend light not by the shape of their lenses, but with the help of software, microchips and electroactive materials.
Optical scientists Nasser Peyghambarian, Bernard Kippelen and David Mathine have worked as an interdisciplinary team to identify and develop the best materials for the lenses, studying the optical and electrical properties of the materials, design and fabrication of the lenses, and finally design and integration of the software and electronics into a bench-top prototype. ‘It’s a very exciting project,’ says Nasser Peyghambarian. ‘We are embarking on a revolutionary path to create eyeglasses that focus automatically, which could provide better than 20-20 vision, and can be readily modified and adjusted at the doctor’s office.’
The variable focus glasses first emit an infrared beam on the object the person is looking at such as a book. A microprocessor then calculates the power needed to bring the object into focus. Materials embedded in the eyeglass respond to electric voltages, which control how light is bent at all points across the lens within milliseconds.
‘This technology leapfrogs every type of spectacle lens that’s currently available,’ says Ronald Blum, President and CEO of e-Vision.
