Comparison of a novel adaptive lens with deformable mirrors and its application in high-resolution in-vivo OCT imaging

We present a novel adaptive lens that can correct high order aberrations, and which has the potential to increase the diffusion of adaptive optics to many new applications by simplifying the integration of a wavefront corrector inside existing systems. The adaptive lens design that we present can correct for Zernike wavefront aberrations up to the 4th order. The adaptive lens performance are compared with the one of a membrane and bimorph deformable mirrors used together in a wide field microscope setup, using a Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor for closed loop control. The adaptive lens was also integrated with Fourier Domain Optical Coherence Tomography for in-vivo imaging of mouse retinal structures using an image based wavefront sensorless control.