Soon glasses to see at night

Today, we wear “sunglasses” to see better when there is too much light. Tomorrow, we will also be able to wear “night” glasses, to see better in the dark.

Seeing in the dark was already possible with night vision glasses, with those where you see everything in green, like the military. So far, it’s been pretty cumbersome. They are huge, like a big virtual reality mask.

These night vision glasses, developed by researchers at the Australian National University, look exactly like sunglasses. This means that in addition to prescription glasses and sunglasses, we will have night glasses, which we can take out as soon as night falls to see better, for example, when we drive, when we walk in the evening or when we work with little light.

With these glasses, you can see in black and white with also shades of green. In fact, they work on the same principle as military night vision goggles, that is to say they will intensify the little existing light and convert infrared into visible light.

Today, researchers rely on several optics and electronics. With this discovery, they obtained the same result with a film a few tenths of a millimeter thick. The whole secret comes from a microscopic pattern engraved inside the film. It is he who manages to guide the light, filter it and make it converge as much larger lenses would do.

The price is still unknown. But, good news, this should remain reasonable. The film is designed with the same technologies as semiconductors. Consequently, it should cost the same as a small microprocessor, around ten euros.

However, there is still work to be done, particularly to improve the contrasts and the distance up to which the vision will be clear. But this suggests a whole new category of glasses: night sunglasses. We will finally have an excuse to act like stars and keep our dark glasses on in the middle of the night.