The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Information Processing Techniques Office (IPTO) is requesting information on technology areas for the creation of micro- and nano-scale display technologies for the purpose of creating displays that could be worn as transparent contact lenses.

A limiting factor to un-tethered augmented and/or mixed reality applications is the bulkiness, power consumption, cost, limited resolution, and limited field of view of head-mounted displays. DARPA seeks to leap beyond incremental, evolutionary enhancement of head-mounted display technologies to a see-through contact lens on which images can be displayed. This information might be command-and-control information, not unlike information provided to players of first-person, shooter-type video games or synthetic entities and effects in a live training environment.