Abstract: Presbyopia is the most common ocular affliction and presents an extraordinary public health issue. It affects more than one billion people worldwide, half of whom do not have adequate correction. Although many methods and procedures for presbyopic correction exist, effective and low-cost options are still lacking. I seek a paradigm-shifting approach to the correction of presbyopia by developing accommodative contact lenses (ACL). At the center of the ACL covering the pupil is a 6-mm-diameter tunable liquid lens, whose focal length can be continuously adjusted to provide 0 to 4 diopters of power within 100 milliseconds. This tunable lens cooperates with the cornea and the crystalline lens to ensure comfortable vision at any distance starting from the normal, youthful near point. Autofocusing onto the objects at different viewing distances is realized by electronics circuits embedded in the ACL. Energy harvesting and storage are also realized in the ACL to provide the necessary power. Three components will be developed and then integrated and packaged into regular contact lens materials to form the ACL: 1) tunable liquid lens formed by electrowetting of an oil-saline interface, or alternatively, tunable diffractive lens using liquid crystal as the electro-optic medium;2) on-site light energy harvesting and storage, or alternatively, harvesting radio-frequency energy from ambient electromagnetic waves;3) electronics made conformal to the curved shape of the contact lens. The proposed ACL offers presbyopic patients an unprecedented option of presbyopic correction that can resume their natural and youthful vision at low cost and without any invasive surgeries. It could benefit hundreds of millions of people worldwide. The developed technology can also be modified to realize a contact lens that can continuously monitor the intraocular pressure, hence having tremendous impact in the treatment of glaucoma, the second leading cause of blindness. Public Health Relevance: Presbyopia is a common condition that afflicts more than one billion people worldwide, and about half of the presbyopic patients currently do not have adequate correction. Despite many methods and procedures, effective and low-cost options for presbyopic correction are still lacking. The goal of this project is to develop accommodative contact lenses that can restore natural, youthful way of vision to presbyopic patients at low cost and without invasive surgeries.
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