Alex Dorn, Hans Zappe and Çağlar Ataman at IMTEK, University of Freiburg have published a plug-and-play adaptive optics microscopy approach with full-field correction in Optics Express. Ataman invented the Deformable Phase Plate and is Phaseform’s Lead Scientific Advisor; Zappe advises the company on micro-optics. Like the conjugate AO extension from the same group, it tackles a key limitation of traditional AO systems: the restricted field of view due to the isoplanatic patch size.
In standard AO systems, the isoplanatic patch—a region where aberration correction is effective—is typically small, limiting AO’s ability to handle larger, diverse imaging areas. This is especially challenging in fields like biological imaging, where samples are extensive and varied.
This study takes a complementary approach to the conjugate AO extension published by the same group, offering a straightforward hardware integration to tackle the limited field of view issue of conventional pupil AO implementations. It introduces a modular AO attachment designed for full-field correction by segmenting the imaging field into multiple isoplanatic patches, each corrected individually before being stitched into a comprehensive corrected image.
The adaptive optics module is equipped with a 63-electrode DPP positioned close to the objective lens, achieving precise control over wavefront modulation without adding significant bulk to the optical path. A key innovation is the empirical method to estimate the isoplanatic patch size based on field position, optimizing both correction and measurement time, which is essential for samples exhibiting varying levels of aberration across the field. This system provides a user-friendly AO add-on that can significantly enhance the AO capabilities of commercial microscopy setups, making high-quality, high-resolution imaging more practical for complex samples.
The DPP is placed directly between the microscope’s objective and turret, approximating a pupil-AO configuration. This setup allows for independent correction of sub-regions across the field, effectively addressing limitations associated with field-dependent aberrations. It empirically determines the optimal isoplanatic patch size, adjusting segment sizes to enhance correction efficiency without increasing measurement time. By tiling and stitching high-quality sub-images from each patch, this approach achieves a corrected full-field image. This novel segmentation and stitching method enables the attachment to adapt to various sample types and aberrations with broad applications in biological and material imaging.
Original publication: Alex Dorn, Hans Zappe, and Çağlar Ataman, “Plug-and-play adaptive optics microscopy with full-field correction using isoplanatic patch estimation and field segmentation”, Optics Express, Vol. 32, Issue 23, 41764 (2024). DOI: 10.1364/OE.533494
