Conjugate adaptive optics extension for commercial microscopes

We present what we believe is the first conjugate adaptive optics(AO)extension that can be retrofitted into a commercial microscope by being positioned between the camera port and the image sensor.The extension features a deformable phase plate(DPP),a refractive wavefront modulator,and indirect wavefront sensing to form a completely in-line architecture.This allows the axial position of the DPP to be optimized by maximizing an image quality metric,which is a cumbersome task with deformable mirrors as the correction element.We demonstrate the performance of the system on a Zeiss AxioVert 200M microscope equipped with a 20×0.75 NA air objective.To simulate sample-induced complex aberrations,transparent custom-made arbitrary phase plates were introduced between the sample and the objective.We demonstrate that the extension can provide high-quality full-field correction even for large aberrations,when the DPP is placed at the conjugate plane of the phase plates.We also demonstrate that both the DPP position and its surface profile can be optimized blindly,which can pave the way for plug-and-play conjugate-AO systems.

Cascading optofluidic phase modulators for performance enhancement in refractive adaptive optics

We discuss the implementation and performance of an adaptive optics(AO)system that uses two cascaded deformable phase plates(DPPs),which are transparent optofluidic phase modulators,mimicking the common woofer/tweeter-type astronomical AO systems.One of the DPPs has 25 electrodes forming a keystone pattern best suited for the correction of low-order and radially symmetric modes;the second device has 37 hexagonally packed electrodes better suited for high-order correction.We also present simulation results and experimental validation for a new open-loop control strategy enabling simultaneous control of both DPPs,which ensures optimum correction for both large-amplitude low-order,and complex combinations of low-and high-order aberrations.The resulting system can reproduce Zernike modes up to the sixth radial order with stroke and fidelity up to twice better than what is attainable with either of the DPPs individually.The performance of the new AO configuration is also verified in a custom-developed fluorescence microscope with sensorless aberration correction.