The invention provides a method producing contact lenses, comprising the step of: separating the mold into the male and female mold halves, with the silicone hydrogel contact lens adhered on one of the male and female mold halves; bring a shaped ultrasonic horn in direct contact with at least one area of a non-optical surface of the female mold half or the male mold half having the molded silicone hydrogel contact lens attached thereon; and applying a ultrasonic vibrational energy to the at least one area of the non-optical surface of the female mold half or the male mold half having the molded silicone hydrogel contact lens attached thereon so as to separate the molded silicone hydrogel contact lens from the mold half attached thereon.

Exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure provide a method and apparatus for forming an ophthalmic lens. An exemplary method includes providing a plurality of posterior tools each having a posterior optic defining surface and a plurality of anterior tools each having an anterior optic defining surface, wherein each one of the plurality of posterior tools has a different central posterior optic defining surface including a unique conic section. The method further includes selecting one of the plurality of posterior tools and one of the plurality of anterior tools based on a criteria, and forming a posterior mold by the selected one of the plurality of posterior tools and an anterior mold by the selected one of the plurality of anterior tools, the posterior mold and the anterior mold operable to form an ophthalmic lens having the criteria.

The present invention generally relates to inherently wettable silicone hydrogel contact lenses having relatively high oxygen permeability, relatively high equilibrium water content and relatively low elastic modulus. The present invention is also related to a method for making such inherently wettable silicone hydrogel contact lenses.

A water extractable ophthalmic device is disclosed which is a polymerization product of a monomeric mixture comprising: (a) one or more cyclic lactams; (b) one or more non-bulky organosilicon-containing monomers; (c) one or more bulky siloxane monomers; and (d) a crosslinking agent mixture comprising (i) one or more first crosslinking agents containing at least two ethylenically unsaturated reactive end groups, wherein the at least two ethylenically unsaturated reactive end groups are (meth)acrylate-containing reactive end groups and (ii) one or more second crosslinking agents containing at least two ethylenically unsaturated reactive end groups wherein at least one of the ethylenically unsaturated reactive end groups is a non-(meth)acrylate reactive end group. The water extractable ophthalmic device has an equilibrium water content of at least about 50 wt. %, a contact angle of less than about 50°, and an oxygen permeability of at least about 60 Barrers.

Disclosed in this specification is a process for manufacturing a thermochromic contact lens. The process includes (1) selecting a photoinitiator that absorbs at a first wavelength and at least one thermochromic dye that displays substantial absorption at the first wavelength when the dye is at a first temperature and exhibits at least an 80% reduction in absorbance at the first wavelength at a second temperature, (2) maintaining the reaction mixture at the second temperature and (3) providing cure light that includes the first wavelength.

Described herein is a method for producing photochromic silicone hydrogel contact lenses in a relatively efficient and consistent manner from a polymerizable composition under a controlled thermal curing scheme. The main polymerizable components in the polymerizable composition are a high radical-reactive hydrophilic (meth)acrylamido monomer, a high radical-reactive siloxane-containing (meth)acrylamido monomer, and a polysiloxane vinylic crosslinker(s) free of low-reactive ethylenically unsaturated group as the main crosslinker. The thermal free radical initiator having a 10 hour half-life temperature (T.sub.10hλ) of from about 50° C. to about 90° C. The controlled thermal curing scheme includes maintaining a first curing temperature of from about (T.sub.10hλ−20)° C. to about T.sub.10hλ° C. for a first curing time and maintaining a second curing temperature of from about (T.sub.10hλ+10)° C. to about (T.sub.10hλ+35)° C. for a second curing time.

A silicone hydrogel composition includes a first hydrophilic monomer, a siloxane compound, a first crosslinking monomer, a second hydrophilic monomer, and a second crosslinking monomer. The first hydrophilic monomer and the siloxane compound have an acrylate group or an acrylamide group and may also have a methacrylate group or a methacrylamide group. The first crosslinking monomer has a plurality of acrylate groups or acrylamide groups and may also have methacrylate groups or methacrylamide groups. The second hydrophilic monomer has a non-conjugated vinyl group. The second crosslinking monomer has a plurality of non-conjugated vinyl groups. A sum of the weight of the second hydrophilic monomer and the weight of the second crosslinking monomer is 40 to 100 parts by weight, relative to 100 parts by weight of the sum of the weight of the first hydrophilic monomer, the weight of the siloxane compound, and the weight of the first crosslinking monomer.

The invention provides a contact lens manufacturing method comprising a process for removing unprocessed molded silicone hydrogel contact lenses from mold halves in a relatively efficient and consistent manner. The method of the invention involves using a silicone fluid (or so-called silicone oil) as non-reactive diluent in SiHy lens formulation for making SiHy contact lenses. Resultant SiHy contact lenses cast-molded from such a SiHy lens formulation can have a significantly reduced adhesion force with the molding surfaces of a lens mold and consequently a higher efficiency and consistency in removing unprocessed molded SiHy contact lenses from mold halves can be achieved. This method of the invention can be easily implemented in a production environment for enhancing the production yield.

A contact lens having dimples on a posterior surface is described as well as cast molds and injection molding inserts for manufacturing the same. The contact lens includes a posterior surface having an optic zone, a peripheral zone, and a circumferential edge, where dimples are located in the peripheral zone, and can include at least 1000 dimples.

A meniscus shaped lens module comprises one or more structures that decrease an amount of pressure or force to move one or more surfaces of the lens module and increase a separation distance of anterior and posterior surfaces of the module in order to provide an increase in optical power. A lens structure of the module comprises one or more of a pattern of a surface of a central chamber, a meniscus, a reduced diameter or a soft material in order to provide increased amounts of curvature of an outer contact lens surface with decreased amounts of pressure. The pattern can be formed in one or more of many ways, and may comprise one or more of folds, patterning, bellows or concertinaed surface of an optically transmissive material having a substantially uniform thickness such as a sheet of a membrane material.