A liquid crystal based contact lens display using PEDOT: PSS and obliquely evaporated SiO2

An active spherically conformed liquid crystal cell is presented comprising PEDOT:PSS as a transparent conductive layer and obliquely evaporated SiO2 as an alignment layer. To tackle compatibility issues with the SU8 processing needed for the spacers, an additional buffer layer was included in the fabrication process. The electro-optic response is inspected closely and a contrast measurement is given

The smart contact lens: from an artificial iris to a contact lens display

Contactlenzen zijn ruim gekend als passieve hulpmiddelen voor visuele correctie, maar in het laatste decennium is er een nieuw onderzoeksdomein ontstaan naar zogenaamde 'slimme' contactlenzen. Door het toevoegen van elektronische componenten en andere actieve elementen kunnen nieuwe functionaliteiten aan contactlenzen worden gegeven zoals het meten van biomedische parameters, actieve visuscorrectie en Augmented Reality. Met het oog op potentiele toepassingen in actieve visuscorrectie en Augmented Reality, werd er in dit onderzoek werd gekeken hoe klassieke LCD technologie geïntegreerd kan worden in contactlenzen. Gebaseerd op bestaande fabricagemethoden van flexibele beeldschermen werd een nieuw productieproces opgesteld dat toeliet om een sferisch vervormde vloeibaarkristal-cel te produceren die dun genoeg was om in een contactlens geïntegreerd to worden. Hierna werden de eerste mogelijke applicaties zoals een artificiële iris en een actieve multifocaallens verkend en werd er gekeken wat de verdere uitdagingen waren om tot een heus contactlensbeeldscherm te komen

A biocompatible active artificial iris

A contact lens mimicking an artificial iris is presented as solution for people suffering from iris deficiencies. As this is a biomedical device, biocompatibility is a key specification for material choice and design. The presented research focusses on oxygen permeability of the lens, as the eye depends on oxygen from the environment for functioning

A contact lens with built-in display: science fiction or not?

Recent progress in microsystems integration technology such as ultra-thin chip packaging, stretchable interconnections, thin-film batteries and organic photovoltaics makes it feasible to incorporate various electronic components and transducers in extremely confined spaces and inside flexible or conformable objects. Can this ultimately lead to a genuine display in a contact lens? The major outstanding issues are reviewed

Free-form 2.5D thermoplastic circuits using one-time stretchable interconnections

A technology is presented for the production of soft and rigid circuits with an arbitrary 2.5D fixed shape. The base of this technology is our proprietary technology for elastic circuits with a random shape, in which the elastic thermoset (mostly PDMS) polymer is now replaced by soft or rigid thermoplastic variants. An additional thermoforming step is required to transform the circuit from its initial flat to its final fixed 2.5D shape, but for rigid fixed shape circuits only one-time stretchability of the extensible interconnects is required, relieving the reliability requirements

A single step method for characterizing blue phase LCs at various temperatures

Characterization of Blue Phase liquid crystals (BPLC) at different temperatures is an interesting but time consuming research activity. We present a quick and efficient one step method to record the Polarization optical micrograph (POM) depicting texture of BPLC at various temperatures simultaneously and also support our case with COMSOL simulations

Importance of alignment layers in blue phase liquid crystal devices

In this paper we present how alignment layers affect Blue Phase Liquid Crystals and how we can use this effect to our advantage. We argue that contrary to the prevailing perception alignment layers can be of vital importance to blue phase liquid crystal based devices