Multi-conjugate adaptive optics for the eye

Investigators: Stéphane Chamot and Chris Dainty

In the classical approach used for the existing adaptive optics ophthalmoscopes (imaging and scanning laser systems), the lenslet array of a Shack-Hartmann sensor is conjugated to the cornea entrance pupil plane, which results in a sampling of the full aberrated ocular wavefront. ^1-3 Until now, this approach was proven successful for visualisation of photoreceptor cells in the retina, however anisoplanatism still angularly restricts the correction ability of these techniques to fractions of a degree.

Fig.1: Aberrations collected over different field angles arise from different parts of the ocular optics components, resulting in anisoplanatism

Ocular aberrations being distributed among a least six refractive surfaces (front and back cornea, front lens cortex, front and back lens core, back lens cortex), we would like to investigate the potential of a multi-conjugate wavefront sensing approach over the standard one. This would first allow us to study the distribution and dynamics of the aberration among the different parts of the eye (cornea versus lens) and further correct ocular aberrations using multiconjugated wavefront correctors. We strongly believe that this approach might enhance our comprehension of the ocular wavefront distribution and improve the quality of the imaging instruments by achieving higher resolutions over larger fields of view.

References

1. Liang J, Williams DR, Miller DT. Supernormal vision and high-resolution retinal imaging through adaptive optics. J Opt Soc Am A. 1997;14:2884-2892.

2. Roorda A, Romero-Borja F, Donnelly WJI, Quenner H, Hebert TJ, Campbell MC. Adaptive optics scanning laser ophthalmosopy. Optics Express. 2002;10:405-412.

3. Hofer H, Chen L, Yoon GY, Singer B, Yamauchi Y, Williams DR. Improvement in retinal image quality with dynamic correction of the eye's aberration. Optics Express. 2001;8:631-643.

Last Updated: 30th November 2005