580 results about "Wavefront aberration" patented technology

The present invention provides an ophthalmic lens capable of correcting or minimizing presbyopia, or of functioning used as an anti-myopic lens. The ophthalmic lens can be a contact lens, a phakic intraocular lens or an aphakic intraocular lens. The ophthalmic lens comprises an optical zone, the optical zone having a first surface and an opposite second surface and including a coma-like wavefront aberration oriented vertically from the top to the bottom of the ophthalmic lens. In addition, the present invention provides a method for minimizing / correcting presbyopia or for preventing children's eyes from becoming severely myopic.

A combination of a scanning laser ophthalmoscope and external laser sources (52) is used for microphotocoagulation and photodynamic therapy, two examples of selective therapeutic laser. A linkage device incorporating a beamsplitter (56) and collimator-telescope (60) is adjusted to align the pivot point (16) of the scanning lasers (38, 40) and external laser source (52). A similar pivot point minimizes wavefront aberrations, enables precise focusing and registration of the therapeutic laser beam (52) on the retina without the risk of vignetting. One confocal detection pathway of the scanning laser ophthalmoscope images the retina. A second and synchronized detection pathway with a different barrier filter (48) is needed to draw the position and extent of the therapeutic laser spot on the retinal image, as an overlay (64). Advanced spatial modulation increases the selectivity of the therapeutic laser. In microphotocoagulation, an adaptive optics lens (318) is attached to the scanning laser ophthalmoscope, in proximity of the eye. It corrects the higher order optical aberrations of the eye optics, resulting in smaller and better focused applications. In photodynamic therapy, a spatial modulator (420) is placed within the collimator-telescope (60) of the therapeutic laser beam (52), customizing its shape as needed. A similar effect can be obtained by modulating a scanning laser source (38) of appropriate wavelength for photodynamic therapy.

Wavefront aberration of a projection optical system is measured and information on the wavefront aberration is obtained (step 102). Furthermore, a pattern of a reticle is transferred onto a wafer via a projection optical system (steps 104 to 108). Then, the waver on which the pattern is transferred is developed, and line width measurement is performed on the resist image formed on the wafer and line width difference of images of a first line pattern extending in a predetermined direction and a second line pattern that is orthogonal to the first line pattern is measured (steps 112 to 118). And, according to a value of the 12th term of the Zernike polynomial, which is an expansion of the wavefront aberration, and the line width difference, the projection optical system is adjusted so that magnitude of the 9th term (a low order spherical aberration term) is controlled (steps 120 to 124).

A combination of a confocal scanning laser ophthalmoscope and external laser sources is used for microphotocoagulation purposes. An opto-mechanical linkage device and beamsplitter is used to align the pivot point of the Maxwellian view of the scanning laser ophthalmoscope with the pivot point of non-scanning external laser beams. The same pivot point is necessary to minimize wavefront aberrations and to enable precise focussing of a therapeutic laser beam on the retina. An AOM and / or two-dimensional AOD can be inserted in the pathway of the Gaussian therapeutic beam to control intensity and spatial pattern of small and short-duration pulses. The location of the external laser beam on the retina is determined with the help of two synchronized detectors and image processing. One detector is used to localize moving fiducial landmarks of the retina. A second detector is used to locate on the retina the external laser aiming beam. Two different confocal apertures are used. Polarizing the aiming beam is necessary to further reduce unwanted reflections from the anterior corneal surface.

An Eyeglass Manufacturing Method Using Epoxy Aberrator includes two lenses with a variable index material, such as epoxy, sandwiched in between. The epoxy is then cured to different indexes of refraction that provide precise corrections for the patient's wavefront aberrations. The present invention further provides a method to produce an eyeglass that corrects higher order aberrations, such as those that occur when retinal tissue is damaged due to glaucoma or macular degeneration. The manufacturing method allows for many different applications including, but not limited to, supervision and transition lenses.

In one embodiment, an apparatus for optimizing vision correction procedures comprising: a narrow beam of light directed to a patient's retina; a dynamic defocus and compensation offsetting device configured to offset the defocus of a wavefront from an eye, a wavefront sensor configured to measure the local tilt of a number of subwavefronts sampled around an annular ring (the diameter of which can be dynamically changed) over the wavefront with the defocus offset; and a display device configured to display a two dimensional (2D) data points pattern in real time with each data point location representing a corresponding local tilt of the sampled subwavefronts. A proper defocus offset, not passive compensation, can reveal the predominant feature(s) of other wavefront aberration component(s), thus enabling a refractive surgeon to fine tune the vision correction procedure and minimize the remaining wavefront aberration(s) in real time. Meanwhile, by sampling the wavefront around annular rings and displaying the local tilt of the sampled subwavefronts on a monitor in the form of a 2D data points pattern, a refractive ophthalmic surgeon can easily correlate the measurement result to the two major refractive errors, namely spherical and cylinder refractive errors, including the axis of astigmatism.

Devices, systems, and methods for treating and / or determining appropriate prescriptions for one or both eyes of a patient are particularly well-suited for addressing presbyopia, often in combination with concurrent treatments of other vision defects. High-order spherical aberration may be imposed in one or both of a patient's eyes, often as a controlled amount of negative spherical aberration extending across a pupil. A desired presbyopia-mitigating quantity of high-order spherical aberration may be defined by one or more spherical Zernike coefficients, which may be combined with Zernike coefficients generated from a wavefront aberrometer. The resulting prescription can be imposed using refractive surgical techniques such as laser eye surgery, using intraocular lenses and other implanted structures, using contact lenses, using temporary or permanent corneal reshaping techniques, and / or the like.

An Eyeglass Manufacturing Method Using Epoxy Aberrator includes two lenses with a variable index material, such as epoxy, sandwiched in between. The epoxy is then cured to different indexes of refraction that provide precise corrections for the patient's wavefront aberrations. The present invention further provides a method to produce an eyeglass that corrects higher order aberrations, such as those that occur when retinal tissue is damaged due to glaucoma or macular degeneration. The manufacturing method allows for many different applications including, but not limited to, supervision and transition lenses.

A system and method for specifying a vision correction prescription for a patient's eye, wherein in one embodiment, the method includes obtaining a wavefront aberration measurement of the patient's eye, applying at least one value from the wavefront aberration measurement to a statistical model trained using a plurality of objectively measured aberration values and a plurality subjectively measured visual acuity values as training data; and predicting a vision correction prescription for the patient's eye based on the at least one value and the statistical model.

Methods and devices are disclosed for acquiring depth resolved aberration information using principles of low coherence interferometry and perform coherence gated wavefront sensing (CG-WFS). The wavefront aberrations is collected using spectral domain low coherence interferometry (SD-LCI) or time domain low coherence interferometry (TD-LCI) principles. When using SD-LCI, chromatic aberrations can also be evaluated. Methods and devices are disclosed in using a wavefront corrector to compensate for the aberration information provided by CG-WFS, in a combined imaging system, that can use one or more channels from the class of (i) optical coherence tomography (OCT), (ii) scanning laser ophthalmoscopy, (iii) microscopy, such as confocal or phase microscopy, (iv) multiphoton microscopy, such as harmonic generation and multiphoton absorption. In particular, a swept source (SS) is used that drives both an OCT channel and a coherence gated wavefront sensor, where:a) both channels operate according to SS-OCT principles;b) OCT channel integrates over at least one tuning scan of the swept source to provide a TD-OCT image of the object;c) CG-WFS integrates over at least one tuning scan of the swept source to provide an en-face TD-OCT mapping of the wavefront.For some implementations, simultaneous and dynamic aberration measurements / correction with the imaging process is achieved. The methods and devices for depth resolved aberrations disclosed, will find applications in wavefront sensing and adaptive optics imaging systems that are more tolerant to stray reflections from optical interfaces, such as reflections from the microscope objectives and cover slip in microscopy and when imaging the eye, the reflection from the cornea.

A scanning laser ophthalmoscope incorporates adaptive optics to compensate for wavefront aberrations in the eye. Light from a light source is scanned onto the retina. Light reflected from the retina is detected for imaging and is also used for wavefront sensing. The sensed wavefront aberrations are used to control an adaptive optic device, such as a deformable mirror, disposed in the path of the light from the source in order to compensate for the aberrations.

A combination of a confocal scanning laser ophthalmoscope and external laser sources is used for microphotocoagulation purposes. An opto-mechanical linkage device and beamsplitter is used to align the pivot point of the Maxwellian view of the scanning laser ophthalmoscope with the pivot point of non-scanning external laser beams. The same pivot point is necessary to minimize wavefront aberrations and to enable precise focussing of a therapeutic laser beam on the retina. An AOM and / or two-dimensional AOD can be inserted in the pathway of the Gaussian therapeutic beam to control intensity and spatial pattern of small and short-duration pulses. The location of the external laser beam on the retina is determined with the help of two synchronized detectors and image processing. One detector is used to localize moving fiducial landmarks of the retina. A second detector is used to locate on the retina the external laser aiming beam. Two different confocal apertures are used. Polarizing the aiming beam is necessary to further reduce unwanted reflections from the anterior corneal surface.

A method for at least one of preventing myopia and retarding the progression of myopia is provided. The method includes measuring optical aberrations in a human eye and correcting the optical aberrations. Measuring optical aberrations may include measuring wavefront aberrations of parallel light rays entering the eye.

A method of correcting wavefront aberrations of an eye includes determining a high precision conventional intrastromal corneal ablation profile based on a direct removal of the intrastromal corneal tissue. An expanded ablation volume profile is constructed based on the direct tissue removal profile and the expanded tissue volume is to be ablated instead to correct to the wavefront aberrations. The thickness of the ablated profile of a conventional ablation profile is expanded by an expansion factor (Nc-1) / (Nm-Nc), Nc is the index of refraction of the cornea and Nm the index of fill material. An expanded ablation volume filled with the fill material produces the effect of correcting wavefront aberrations as if a much smaller tissue volume were ablated without the fill material.

A method of measuring eye refraction to achieve desired quality according to a selected vision characteristics comprising the steps of selecting a characteristic of vision to correlate to the desired quality of vision from a group of vision characteristics comprising acuity, Strehl ratio, contrast sensitivity, night vision, day vision, and depth of focus, dynamic refraction over a period of time during focus accommodation, and dynamic refraction over a period of time during pupil constriction and dilation; using wavefront aberration measurements to objectively measure the state of the eye refraction that defines the desired vision characteristic; and expressing the measured state of refraction with a mathematical function to enable correction of the pre-selected vision characteristic to achieve the desired quality of vision. The mathematical function of expression may be a Zernike polynomial having both second order and higher order terms or a function determined by spline mathematical calculations. The pre-selected desired vision characteristics may be determined using ray tracing technology.

Devices and methods for controlling myopia are provided. The devices and methods relate to the inventors discovery of the relationship between near work, the forces applied to the eye by the eyelids and myopia. The devices include a contact lens comprising a region that disperses force applied to the eye by an eyelid. The devices also include a device designed by measuring first wavefront aberrations of an eye before pre-near work and measuring second measured wavefront aberrations of the eye post-near work. The methods include a method for controlling myopia including identifying optical changes associated with near work and correcting the optical changes with an optical device.

A beam control system and method: The inventive system includes, an arrangement for receiving a first beam of electromagnetic energy; measuring wavefront aberrations in the first beam with a wavefront sensor; and removing global tilt from the measured wavefront aberrations to provide higher order aberrations for beam control. In the illustrative embodiment, the invention uses a traditional (quad-cell) Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor to measure wavefront aberrations. An adaptive optics processor electronically removes the global tilt (angular jitter) from this measurement leaving only the higher-order Zernike components. These higher-order aberrations are then applied to wavefront control elements, such as deformable mirrors or spatial light modulators that correct the tracker image and apply a conjugate distortion to the wavefront of the outgoing HEL beam. A track error (angular jitter) component is supplied by a separate fine track sensor. This jitter error is then applied by the adaptive optics processor to a fast steering mirror, which corrects jitter in the tracker image and applies a compensating distortion to the LOS of the HEL beam.

A vision metric, called the sharpness metric, indicates the subjective sharpness of a patient's vision by taking into account both the wavefront aberration and the retinal response to the image. A retinal image quality function such as the point spread function is convolved by a neural quality function, and the maximum of the convolution over the retinal plane provides the sharpness metric. The sharpness metric can be used to control eye surgery or the fabrication of a lens.

Contact lenses, such as prism ballasted toric lenses, having anterior and posterior surfaces related by way of non-axisymmetric thickness variation can exhibit a third-order aberration, particularly vertical coma. A wavefront modifier, such as an aspheric surface modification, is incorporated into the lenses to at least partially compensate for the wavefront aberration associated with the non-axisymmetric thickness variation. A magnitude of the modifications can be adjusted to set a target value for any remaining wavefront aberration of the lenses based on a population-wide goal.

An improved moiré deflectometer device for measuring a wavefront aberration of an optical system includes a light source for illuminating a surface area of the optical system, an optical relay system for directing scattered light to a deflectometer component that converts the wavefront into a moiré fringe pattern, a sensor / camera assembly for imaging and displaying the exit pupil of the optical system and the moiré´ fringe pattern, and a fringe pattern to calculate the wavefront aberration of the optical system, being improved by an illumination source for illuminating the exit pupil of the optical system; and an alignment system cooperating with the illumination source in such a manner to consistently and accurately align a measurement axis of the device to the optical system. An associated method is also disclosed.

A second communications server obtains adjustment information of an adjustment unit in an exposure apparatus and information related to image forming quality (such as wavefront aberration) of a projection optical system under an exposure condition that serves as a reference, via a first communications server, and then calculates an optimal adjustment amount of the adjustment unit under a target exposure condition based on the information. In addition, the second communications server obtains adjustment information of the adjustment and actual measurement data of image forming quality of the projection optical system via the first communications server, and then calculates the optimal adjustment amount of the adjustment unit under the target exposure condition based on the information. And, the second communications server controls the adjustment unit in the exposure apparatus via the first communications server, based on the calculations results.

Methods of acoustic imaging provide images with reduced reverberation noise and images of nonlinear scattering and propagation parameters of the object, and estimation methods of corrections for wave front aberrations produced by spatial variations in the acoustic propagation velocity. The methods are based on processing of the received signal from transmitted dual frequency band acoustic pulse complexes with overlapping high and low frequency pulses. The high frequency pulse is used for the image reconstruction and the low frequency pulse is used to manipulate the nonlinear scattering and / or propagation properties of the high frequency pulse. Through filtering in the pulse number coordinate and corrections for nonlinear propagation delays and optionally also amplitudes, a linear back scattering signal with suppressed pulse reverberation noise, a nonlinear back scattering signal, and quantitative nonlinear forward propagation and scattering parameters are extracted.

An exposure method of forming pattern on object via projection optical system, including deciding optimal adjustment amount of adjustment device which adjusts image forming property of the projection optical system to optimize the image forming property under pattern to be formed and exposure condition of the pattern, based on information related to wavefront aberration of the projection optical system, Zernike Sensitivity Chart corresponding to the pattern and the exposure condition, wavefront aberration variation table that denotes relation between adjustment amount of the adjustment device and change in coefficients of terms in the Zernike polynomial, and restraint condition with respect to the adjustment amount of the adjustment device, and exposing the pattern on the object under the exposure condition via the projection optical system of which the image forming property is adjusted by the adjustment device based on the decided optimal adjustment amount.

An optical system includes multiple cubic crystalline optical elements aligned along a common optical axis and having their crystal lattices oriented with respect to each other to minimize the effects of intrinsic birefringence and produce a system with reduced retardance. The optical system may be a refractive or catadioptric system having a high numerical aperture and using light with a wavelength at or below 248 nanometers. The net retardance of the system is less than the sum of the retardance contributions of the respective optical elements as the elements are oriented such that the intrinsic birefringences of the individual elements cancel each other out. In one embodiment, two [110] cubic crystalline optical elements are clocked with respect to one another and used in conjunction with a [100] cubic crystalline optical element to reduce retardance. Various birefringent elements, wave plates, and combinations thereof provide additional correction for residual retardance and wavefront aberrations. The optical system may be used in a photolithography tool to pattern substrates such as semiconductor substrates and thereby produce semiconductor devices.

A selectively marked contact lens having, in one aspect, marks in an optical zone region on a surface thereof and, in another aspect, different marks outside an optical zone region of the lens, for an in-vivo lens. With the lens in-vivo, the subject's eye is illuminated and the lens is imaged. A fast algorithm is used to determine the mark coordinates in relation to a measured pupil coordinate to determine position and / or orientation of the contact lens. A wavefront aberration measurement can also be obtained simultaneously with the contact lens position measurement, as well as pupil size. A fast algorithm provides for online measurements; i.e., at a repetition rate of 10 Hz or greater, over a selected time interval. Blinking periods are determined and anomalous lens position and / or wavefront information is discarded. A most frequently occurring wavefront and / or contact lens position / orientation is determined over the selected time interval.

A method of designing a contact lens or other correction for providing presbyopia correction to a patient relies on wavefront aberration measurement data for providing a best form correction. Preferably the correction is in the form of a multifocal translating style alternating vision contact lens or a simultaneous vision style correcting lens. A method for designing a correction for improving a person's vision is directed to correcting higher order aberrations in such a manner that a residual amount of the higher-order rotationally symmetric aberration is greater than a residual amount of the higher-order rotationally asymmetric aberration after the correction. A design method according to the invention is directed to correcting asymmetric higher order aberrations induced by decentering of a multifocal contact lens that has residual spherical aberration which provides increased depth of field.

An improved moiré deflectometer device for measuring a wavefront aberration of an optical system includes a light source for illuminating a surface area of the optical system, an optical relay system for directing scattered light to a deflectometer component that converts the wavefront into a moiré fringe pattern, a sensor / camera assembly for imaging and displaying the exit pupil of the optical system and the moire fringe pattern, and a fringe pattern to calculate the wavefront aberration of the optical system, being improved by an illumination source for illuminating the exit pupil of the optical system; and an alignment system cooperating with the illumination source in such a manner to consistently and accurately align a measurement axis of the device to the optical system. An associated method is also disclosed.

Devices and methods for controlling myopia are provided. The devices and methods relate to the inventors discovery of the relationship between near work, the forces applied to the eye by the eyelids and myopia. The devices include a contact lens comprising a region that disperses force applied to the eye by an eyelid. The devices also include a device designed by measuring first wavefront aberrations of an eye before pre-near work and measuring second measured wavefront aberrations of the eye post-near work. The methods include a method for controlling myopia including identifying optical changes associated with near work and correcting the optical changes with an optical device.

Eye refraction is measured to achieve desired quality via a selected vision characteristics. A characteristic of vision is selected to correlate to the desired quality of vision from a group of vision characteristics comprising acuity, Strehl ratio, contrast sensitivity, night vision, day vision, and depth of focus, dynamic refraction over a period of time during focus accommodation, and dynamic refraction over a period of time during pupil constriction and dilation. Wavefront aberration measurements are used to objectively measure the state of the eye refraction that defines the desired vision characteristic. The measured state of refraction is expressed with a mathematical function enabling correction of the pre-selected vision characteristic to achieve the desired quality of vision. The mathematical expression function may be a Zernike polynomial having both second order and higher order terms or a function determined by spline mathematical calculations. Pre-selected vision characteristics may be determined using ray tracing technology.