High-accuracy wavefront control for retinal imaging with Adaptive-Influence-Matrix Adaptive Optics.

We present an iterative technique for improving adaptive optics (AO) wavefront correction for retinal imaging, called the Adaptive-Influence-Matrix (AIM) method. This method is based on the fact that the deflection-to-voltage relation of common deformable mirrors used in AO are nonlinear, and the fact that in general the wavefront errors of the eye can be considered to be composed of a static, non-zero wavefront error (such as the defocus and astigmatism), and a time-varying wavefront error. The aberrated wavefront is first corrected with a generic influence matrix, providing a mirror compensation figure for the static wavefront error. Then a new influence matrix that is more accurate for the specific static wavefront error is calibrated based on the mirror compensation figure. Experimental results show that with the AIM method the AO wavefront correction accuracy can be improved significantly in comparison to the generic AO correction. The AIM method is most useful in AO modalities where there are large static contributions to the wavefront aberrations.