Plug-and-play adaptive optics microscopy with full-field correction using isoplanatic patch estimation and field segmentation.

Abstract

We discuss the implementation and performance of a plug-play adaptive optics (AO) module for commercial microscopes comprising indirect wavefront sensing, and a deformable phase plate (DPP) located directly between the objective and the turret. With the DPP at this location, the system closely resembles a pupil-AO scheme, in which effective aberration correction is only possible within the isoplanatic patch. We overcome this limitation by estimating the aberration profiles at multiple field points in parallel and correcting them in sequence to obtain a 2D array of high-quality sub-aperture images. These are then stitched together to form a corrected full-field image. To minimize the measurement time without compromising correction quality, we propose an empirical method to identify the size of the isoplanatic patch, which is both sample and system dependent. Matching the field segment size to that of the isoplanatic patch provides the best compromise between consistent correction quality across the image and measurement time. We demonstrate the performance of the developed system in a commercial microscope using synthetic samples and discuss the performance and limitations of the system.