School of Materials Science and Engineering, Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST), Ulsan 44919, Republic of Korea.
School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, UNIST, Ulsan 44919, Republic of Korea.
Sci Adv. 2018 Jan 24;4(1):eaap9841. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.aap9841. eCollection 2018 Jan.
Recent advances in wearable electronics combined with wireless communications are essential to the realization of medical applications through health monitoring technologies. For example, a smart contact lens, which is capable of monitoring the physiological information of the eye and tear fluid, could provide real-time, noninvasive medical diagnostics. However, previous reports concerning the smart contact lens have indicated that opaque and brittle components have been used to enable the operation of the electronic device, and this could block the user's vision and potentially damage the eye. In addition, the use of expensive and bulky equipment to measure signals from the contact lens sensors could interfere with the user's external activities. Thus, we report an unconventional approach for the fabrication of a soft, smart contact lens in which glucose sensors, wireless power transfer circuits, and display pixels to visualize sensing signals in real time are fully integrated using transparent and stretchable nanostructures. The integration of this display into the smart lens eliminates the need for additional, bulky measurement equipment. This soft, smart contact lens can be transparent, providing a clear view by matching the refractive indices of its locally patterned areas. The resulting soft, smart contact lens provides real-time, wireless operation, and there are in vivo tests to monitor the glucose concentration in tears (suitable for determining the fasting glucose level in the tears of diabetic patients) and, simultaneously, to provide sensing results through the contact lens display.
可穿戴电子设备与无线通信技术的最新进展对于通过健康监测技术实现医疗应用至关重要。例如，智能隐形眼镜能够监测眼睛和泪液的生理信息，可以提供实时、非侵入性的医疗诊断。然而，之前关于智能隐形眼镜的报告表明，电子设备的运行需要使用不透明和易碎的组件，这可能会阻碍用户的视力并有可能损伤眼睛。此外，使用昂贵且庞大的设备来测量隐形眼镜传感器的信号可能会干扰用户的外部活动。因此，我们报告了一种制造软质智能隐形眼镜的非常规方法，其中使用透明和可拉伸的纳米结构充分集成了葡萄糖传感器、无线功率传输电路和显示像素，以实时可视化感应信号。将这种显示器集成到智能隐形眼镜中，可以省去额外的、庞大的测量设备。这种软质智能隐形眼镜是透明的，通过匹配其局部图案区域的折射率，可以提供清晰的视野。所得到的软质智能隐形眼镜可以实现实时、无线操作，并且已经进行了体内测试来监测泪液中的葡萄糖浓度（适用于检测糖尿病患者泪液中的空腹血糖水平），同时通过隐形眼镜显示器提供感应结果。
