Vyas Akondi

Digital pyramid wavefront sensor with tunable modulation

The pyramid wavefront sensor is known for its high sensitivity and dynamic range that can be tuned by mechanically altering its modulation amplitude. Here, a novel modulating digital scheme employing a reflecting phase only spatial light modulator is demonstrated. The use of the modulator allows an easy reconfigurable pyramid with digital control of the apex angle and modulation geometry without the need of any mechanically moving parts. Aberrations introduced by a 140-actuator deformable mirror were simultaneously sensed with the help of a commercial Hartmann-Shack wavefront sensor. The wavefronts reconstructed using the digital pyramid wavefront sensor matched very closely with those sensed by the Hartmann-Shack. It is noted that a tunable modulation is necessary to operate the wavefront sensor in the linear regime and to accurately sense aberrations. Through simulations, it is shown that the wavefront sensor can be extended to astronomical applications as well. This novel digital pyramid wavefront sensor has the potential to become an attractive option in both open and closed loop adaptive optics systems.

Myopic aberrations: impact of centroiding noise in Hartmann Shack wavefront sensing

The presence of photon noise and readout noise can lead to centroiding errors in a Hartmann Shack wavefront sensor (HS) and hence limit the accuracy of wavefront reconstruction. The aim of this paper is to compare, via Monte Carlo simulations, the accuracy of various centroiding methods in detecting noisy focal spot patterns of the HS while sensing ocular aberrations of myopic eyes.

Digital phase-shifting point diffraction interferometer

A digital phase-shifting (PS) point diffraction interferometer is demonstrated with a transmitting liquid crystal spatial light modulator. This novel wavefront sensor allows tunability in the choice of pinhole size and eliminates the need for mechanically moving parts to achieve PS. It is shown that this wavefront sensor is capable of sensing Zernike aberrations introduced with a deformable mirror. The results obtained are compared with those of a commercial Hartmann-Shack wavefront sensor.

Phase unwrapping with a virtual Hartmann-Shack wavefront sensor.

The use of a spatial light modulator for implementing a digital phase-shifting (PS) point diffraction interferometer (PDI) allows tunability in fringe spacing and in achieving PS without the need for mechanically moving parts. However, a small amount of detector or scatter noise could affect the accuracy of wavefront sensing. Here, a novel method of wavefront reconstruction incorporating a virtual Hartmann-Shack (HS) wavefront sensor is proposed that allows easy tuning of several wavefront sensor parameters. The proposed method was tested and compared with a Fourier unwrapping method implemented on a digital PS PDI. The rewrapping of the Fourier reconstructed wavefronts resulted in phase maps that matched well the original wrapped phase and the performance was found to be more stable and accurate than conventional methods. Through simulation studies, the superiority of the proposed virtual HS phase unwrapping method is shown in comparison with the Fourier unwrapping method in the presence of noise. Further, combining the two methods could improve accuracy when the signal-to-noise ratio is sufficiently high.

Evaluation of the True Wavefront Aberrations in Eyes Implanted With a Rotationally Asymmetric Multifocal Intraocular Lens

PURPOSE Standard evaluation of aberrations from wavefront slope measurements in patients implanted with a rotationally asymmetric multifocal intraocular lens (IOL), the Lentis Mplus (Oculentis GmbH, Berlin, Germany), results in large magnitude primary vertical coma, which is attributed to the intrinsic IOL design. The new proposed method analyzes aberrometry data, allowing disentangling the IOL power pupillary distribution from the true higher order aberrations of the eye. METHODS The new method of wavefront reconstruction uses retinal spots obtained at both the near and far foci. The method was tested using ray tracing optical simulations in a computer eye model virtually implanted with the Lentis Mplus IOL, with a generic cornea or with anterior segment geometry obtained from custom quantitative spectral-domain optical coherence tomography in a real patient. The method was applied to laser ray tracing aberrometry data at near and far fixation obtained in a patient implanted with the Lentis Mplus IOL. RESULTS Higher order aberrations evaluated from simulated and real retinal spot diagrams following the new reconstruction approach matched the nominal aberrations (approximately 98%). Previously reported primary vertical coma in patients implanted with this IOL lost significance with the application of the proposed reconstruction. CONCLUSIONS Custom analysis of ray tracing-based retinal spot diagrams allowed decoupling of the true higher order aberrations of the patients eye from the power pupillary distribution of a rotationally asymmetric multifocal IOL, therefore providing the appropriate phase map to accurately evaluate through-focus optical quality. [J Refract Surg. 2017;33(4):257-265.].

Closed-loop adaptive optics using a spatial light modulator for sensing and compensating of optical aberrations in ophthalmic applications

Abstract. Sensing and compensating of optical aberrations in closed-loop mode using a single spatial light modulator (SLM) for ophthalmic applications is demonstrated. Notwithstanding the disadvantages of the SLM, in certain cases, this multitasking capability of the device makes it advantageous over existing deformable mirrors (DMs), which are expensive and in general used for aberration compensation alone. A closed-loop adaptive optics (AO) system based on a single SLM was built. Beam resizing optics were used to utilize the large active area of the device and hence make it feasible to generate 137 active subapertures for wavefront sensing. While correcting Zernike aberrations up to fourth order introduced with the help of a DM (for testing purposes), diffraction-limited resolution was achieved. It is shown that matched filter and intensity-weighted centroiding techniques stand out among others. Closed-loop wavefront correction of aberrations in backscattered light from the eyes of three healthy human subjects was demonstrated after satisfactory results were obtained using an artificial eye, which was simulated with a short focal length lens and a sheet of white paper as diffuser. It is shown that the closed-loop AO system based on a single SLM is capable of diffraction-limited correction for ophthalmic applications.

Temporal multiplexing to simulate multifocal intraocular lenses: theoretical considerations

Fast tunable lenses allow an effective design of a portable simultaneous vision simulator (SimVis) of multifocal corrections. A novel method of evaluating the temporal profile of a tunable lens in simulating different multifocal intraocular lenses (M-IOLs) is presented. The proposed method involves the characteristic fitting of the through-focus (TF) optical quality of the multifocal component of a given M-IOL to a linear combination of TF optical quality of monofocal lenses viable with a tunable lens. Three different types of M-IOL designs are tested, namely: segmented refractive, diffractive and refractive extended depth of focus. The metric used for the optical evaluation of the temporal profile is the visual Strehl (VS) ratio. It is shown that the time profiles generated with the VS ratio as a metric in SimVis resulted in TF VS ratio and TF simulated images that closely matched the TF VS ratio and TF simulated images predicted with the M-IOL. The effects of temporal sampling, varying pupil size, monochromatic aberrations, longitudinal chromatic aberrations and temporal dynamics on SimVis are discussed.

Virtual pyramid wavefront sensor for phase unwrapping

Noise affects wavefront reconstruction from wrapped phase data. A novel method of phase unwrapping is proposed with the help of a virtual pyramid wavefront sensor. The method was tested on noisy wrapped phase images obtained experimentally with a digital phase-shifting point diffraction interferometer. The virtuality of the pyramid wavefront sensor allows easy tuning of the pyramid apex angle and modulation amplitude. It is shown that an optimal modulation amplitude obtained by monitoring the Strehl ratio helps in achieving better accuracy. Through simulation studies and iterative estimation, it is shown that the virtual pyramid wavefront sensor is robust to random noise.

Optimization of sensing parameters for a confocal signal-based wavefront corrector in microscopy

The accuracy of a confocal signal-based wavefront corrector depends on several parameters such as spatial variation of optical properties within the specimen, aberration magnitude and composition, time required for the correction, etc. Here, a numerical analysis has been performed with the aim to improve system performance. The goal of the search algorithm in a confocal signal-based wavefront corrector is to estimate the Zernike coefficients of the aberrations. High-magnitude aberrations show low Strehl ratios. Repeating the correction process results in higher Strehl ratios, but at the cost of increased time. An in-focus on-axis specimen results in higher Strehl ratio compared to an out-of-focus and off-optical-axis specimen. For all cases, the wavefront correction accuracy is better, when the diameter of the pinhole is chosen to be equal to that of the Airy disk. The lower limit on the pinhole size for detecting small magnitude aberrations is set by noise.

3-D Analysis of Pinhole Size Optimization for a Confocal Signal-based Wavefront Sensor

The performance of a confocal signal-based wavefront sensor is determined by the chosen pinhole. Here, a numerical 3-D analysis has been performed to find the most appropriate pinhole for the wavefront sensing.