Experiment design for through-focus testing of intraocular lenses

Eye models to test intraocular lenses (IOLs) in an optical bench are commonly designed in agreement with the ISO 11979-2 and 11979-9 standard requirements. However, modifications to the ISO eye model have been proposed to test IOLs in conditions closer to real human eye. Wavefront analysis and aberration characterization, wavelength dependence, efficiency, off-axis performance and imaging degradation under certain amount of misalignment can thus be measured in vitro. The main parts of the system to test IOLs are: the illumination system and object test, the eye model including the IOL immersed in a wet cell and a microscope assembled to a sensor that magnifies and captures the aerial image of the object formed by the eye model. A problem concerning the simultaneous variation of defocus and magnification arises when using the microscope to capture out-of-focus images in a through-focus study. Using the eye model, we study the problem of implementing a through-focus measurement of the imaging quality of an IOL. We find a solution based on geometrical optics and compare it with other proposals reported in the literature. The effects on the measurement of the Modulation Transfer Function and the Point Spread Function are predicted. Experimental results are obtained and discussed.