A researcher holding one of the completed contact lenses.

Babak Parviz wears contact lenses. But he’s not yet using the new contact lenses he’s made in his Seattle laboratory. Containing electronic circuits, they look like something from a science fiction movie.
According to the Guardian, the Iranian scientist and researcher of the University of Washington is now going to add some extremely small light emitting diodes (LEDs) to help turn his prototype contact lenses into a sophisticated personal display--the tiniest one possible.
As an assistant professor of electrical engineering at the University of Washington, Parviz works on bio-nanotechnology, self-assembly, nanofabrication and micro-electro mechanical systems. He makes tiny but functional electronic devices and, using nanotechnology and microfabrication techniques, integrates them on to polymers or glass using a process known as self-assembly.
So how did he think of making a ’bionic’ contact lens? “Imagine a person with that kind of research expertise and background,“ says Parviz. “Imagine also the same person waking up every morning and putting a contact lens in his eye.“
Making the connection wasn’t hard, as Parviz had also been thinking about unconventional displays. Contact lenses are made from flexible transparent polymers, just the sort of challenging material that Parviz likes to stick tiny electronic circuits on. “The driver is not to make something small. The driver is to make something that’s cool and useful. Having a display in a contact lens is very useful.“
Parviz argues that ironically, the current display sizes in mobile computers and phones hinder rather than help miniaturization. “The display size is one of the main reasons that laptops, cell phones, PDAs, etc are not smaller today. If we move the display to a contact lens, we can significantly remove the physical constraints on mobile devices.“
So far, he’s shown that high-performance circuitry, including microLEDs can be incorporated on to transparent, thin, flexible plastic substrates. The circuits involve making metal layers a few nanometers thick linked to LEDs that are about one third of a millimeter across. A microfabrication technique known as self-assembly relies on capillary effects to bring together pre-shaped pieces of circuit. The prototype contact lens--which will eventually contain LEDs--has yet to be powered up. That key step, says Parviz, is several months off.

2 Power Options
“We’re looking at two different ways to transmit power. One is radio frequency power transmission. We need antennae on these contact lenses anyway because we need to transmit data to them. The other way we’re looking at right now is to incorporate photovoltaic [solar] cells.“
Power isn’t the hardest problem. A contact lens sits directly on the surface of the eye, much too close for the eye’s lens to focus on. “To create the focused image we have to manipulate the light rays,“ says Parviz. “You can create a focused image if you use laser instead of LEDs.“
If shining very low power diode lasers on to the retina seems risky, then microLEDs might be the answer. These provide diffuse light and, to make them work, Parviz might integrate an array of individual micro-lenses into the contact lens. “If the pixel [the microLED] is close enough to the micro-lens, it will generate a virtual image that could be 30cm or more away from the surface. Our eyes can focus on this now.“
All this raises questions of biocompatibility: the electronics in the contact lenses must not harm the eye. If that’s assured, then the idea of a fully functional wireless display on a contact lens might seem, at first, to have many uses.
Parviz talks about augmented reality, such as superimposing text messages or direction arrows on your view of the world. But even trivial applications will require a high-resolution display. So his next step is to demonstrate a programmable wireless contact lens with a few pixels--perhaps eight--that’s safe to wear.

Scientists at the University of Southampton’s School of Electronics and Computer Science (ECS) are developing the world’s smallest, high-performance and low-power sensor in silicon which will have applications in biosensing and environmental monitoring.
Professor Hiroshi Mizuta and his team at ECS are part of the three year European FP7-funded NEMSIC (Nano-electro-mechanical-system-integrated-circuits) project which will make these devices possible, ScienceDaily wrote.
As well as being the smallest sensor on the market to date, it will have extreme sensitivity and very low power consumption. It will achieve this by co-integrating single-electron transistors (SETs) and nano-electro-mechanical systems (NEMS) on a common silicon technology platform.
“Power consumption is a big issue at the moment as devices use current whether they are switched off and on“ said Professor Mizuta. “The single-electron transistor combined with the NEM device technology reduces power consumption at both ON and OFF states of the sensor. Standby power is reduced to zero by having a complete sleep with the NEM switch when it is off.“
Professor Mizuta and his team will develop the single-electron transistor with a unique suspended silicon nanobridge which will work as an extremely sensitive detector for biological and chemical molecules.
“This is the first time that anyone has combined these two nanotechnologies to develop a smart sensor,“ said Professor Mizuta. “The traditional CMOS (Complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor) approach has many limitations so we needed to find a new approach.“ The sensing devices will need to be made to the nanoscale, which will be made possible by the new electron beam lithography machine which will be available in the new ECS Mountbatten building when it opens in July.

More aggressive treatment of childhood eczema may be an important step in preventing asthma, says a new Australian study.
The study calls for trials of aggressive therapies against childhood eczema in an attempt to reduce the incidence of asthma in later life, ScienceDaily reported.
The study, conducted by the University of Melbourne, Monash University and Menzies Research Institute in Tasmania, has followed more than 8,500 people who are part of the Tasmanian Longitudinal Health Study from the ages of seven to 44.
Lead author John Burgess, from the University of Melbourne’s Melbourne School of Population Health, says the study is the first to demonstrate an association between childhood eczema and asthma into middle age.
The study found people who had childhood eczema were more likely to develop childhood asthma, new-onset asthma later in life or to have asthma which persisted from childhood into middle age.
Dr. Burgess said childhood eczema increased the risk of someone developing asthma well into adulthood.
“The incidence of asthma in people from the ages of 8 to 44 who had childhood eczema, was nearly double that of people who had never had eczema,“ Dr. Burgess said.
“The results of our study showed childhood eczema clearly preceded asthma in each later stage of life--later childhood, adolescence and adulthood,“ he said.
“This makes a strong argument for trialing aggressive therapies against childhood eczema to help reduce the burden of asthma later in life.“