Fabrication of Hydrophilic Surface on Rigid Gas Permeable Contact Lenses to Enhance the Wettability Using Ultraviolet Laser System

(Bausch & Lomb Incorporated). Briefly, the mesh pattern was fabricated on the RGP contact lens surface by using the laser and smoothed by using oxygen plasma; the enhanced hydrophilic efficiency was analyzed using contact angle measurement. The experiment results indicated that the contact angle of the lens material decreased by approximately 10°-20° when the pitch of mesh pattern was <50 μm under a 500-mm/s scanning speed. The oxygen plasma enhanced surface wettability with a decreased contact angle (40°). The hydrophilic characteristic of the UV laser and oxygen plasma-treated surface was twice that of oxygen plasma-treated and untreated surfaces. In the future, RGP contact lens edges could be treated with UV laser and oxygen plasma to enhance the tear wettability and wearing comfort.