Companies are working hard to turn simple contact lenses into tiny computers. XPANCEO, a deep-tech company based in France and Dubai, and ITEN, an energy-storage maker, built a working proof-of-concept to embed a microbattery inside a smart contact lens.

A smart lens needs a lot of power to run high-energy functions like augmented reality displays. However, they can’t put a normal battery in your eye. Regular lithium-ion batteries can leak, swell, or heat up. Pacemakers use rigid titanium cases for protection, but a contact lens does not have room for bulky batteries.

An Efficient Battery for a Contact Lens

The two companies turned to solid-state batteries to fix this issue, or at least address it. These batteries use ceramic materials instead of liquid. If they fail, they simply stop working rather than leaking or exploding. ITEN uses special nanomaterials with tiny pores, which give the battery plenty of power without taking up much space.

The team also figured out how to fit the battery into the lens safely using a multi-stage seal and a custom energy harvester that works with changing wireless signals.

“The power system is the real bottleneck in smart contact lens development — and it’s not something you fix with small tweaks. We needed a whole new approach to energy storage at the micro-scale. Working with ITEN, we tackled challenges that had no precedent,” Dr. Valentyn Volkov, founder and CTO of XPANCEO, explained. “Our partnership isn’t focused on adapting existing technology but on creating entirely new categories of components that the supply chain doesn’t produce yet. That’s the challenge, and the opportunity, as we move toward commercialization.”

This new proof of concept shows that safe, high-power microbatteries can be manufactured at scale, and that’s why it matters as we move closer to everyday smart lenses.

“By combining ITEN’s solid-state energy storage technology with cutting-edge smart lens innovation, the ITEN partnership with XPANCEO opens a new frontier in compact, high-power energy solutions,” Vincent Cobée, CEO of ITEN added. “Together, we are enabling a new generation of intelligent and highly integrated systems that demand both performance and reliability — delivering power where space is limited and expectations are high, with the added assurance of full safety enabled by inherently stable, non-flammable product architecture.”