Abstract

Confocal and multiphoton microscopes are particularly sensitive to specimen- or system-induced aberrations, which result in decreased resolution and signal-to-noise ratio. The inclusion of an adaptive optics correction system could help overcome this limitation and restore diffraction-limited performance, but such a system requires a suitable method of wave-front measurement. By extending the concept of a modal wave-front sensor previously described by Neil, et al. [J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 17, 1098–1107 (2000)], we present a new sensor capable of measuring directly the Zernike aberration modes introduced by a specimen. This modal sensor is particularly suited to applications in three-dimensional microscopy because of its inherent axial selectivity; only those wave fronts originating in the focal region contribute to the measured signal. Four wave-front sensor configurations are presented and their input response is characterized. Sensitivity matrices and axial responses are presented.

© 2002 Optical Society of America

New modal wave-front sensor: a theoretical analysis

Mark A. A. Neil, Martin J. Booth, and Tony Wilson
J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 17(6) 1098-1107 (2000)

Closed-loop aberration correction by use of a modal Zernike wave-front sensor

M. A. A. Neil, M. J. Booth, and T. Wilson
Opt. Lett. 25(15) 1083-1085 (2000)

Saturated patterned excitation microscopy—a concept for optical resolution improvement

Rainer Heintzmann, Thomas M. Jovin, and Christoph Cremer
J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 19(8) 1599-1609 (2002)

Investigation of the confocal wavefront sensor and its application to biological microscopy

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Opt. Express 21(16) 19353-19362 (2013)

Decoupled stochastic parallel gradient descent optimization for adaptive optics: integrated approach for wave-front sensor information fusion

Mikhail A. Vorontsov
J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 19(2) 356-368 (2002)