Our team has published a new paper in OSA's journal of "Applied Optics", demonstrating a novel method for extending the correctable FoV by AO for microscopy. The method, called numerical field-segmentation, is specifically meant to overcome the issues associated with field-dependent aberrations in pupil plane wavefront correction systems, a well-known limitation of AO systems.
Our method is an alternative to "conjugate AO" (which requires an individual wavefront modulator for each aberrating layer), and standard "pupil AO" with limited correctable area, by segmenting the FoV into several sub-regions and using a sensorless aberration estimation algorithm to apply the required wavefront correction for each region independently. At the end all the corrected segments are stitched together to construct the whole field. With our approach it is possible to potentially extend the correctable area of all AO systems to the entirety of the FoV, using a single wavefront modulator placed at the pupil plane.
We are confident using our compact and easy-to-integrate deformable phase plates, our novel method will open the path for new applications in adaptive optics microscopy and increase the throughput for optical inspection.
You can read the complete paper in the OSA's Journal of Applied Optics:
Original publication: "Extended field-of-view adaptive optics in microscopy via numerical field segmentation" https://doi.org/10.1364/AO.388000