Sensorless adaptive optics system based on image second moment measurements

This paper presents experimental results of a static aberration control algorithm based on the linear relation be- tween mean square of the aberration gradient and the second moment of point spread function for the generation of control signal input for a deformable mirror (DM). Results presented in the work of Yang et al.1 suggested a good feasibility of the method for correction of static aberration for point and extended sources. However, a practical realisation of the algorithm has not been demonstrated. The goal of this article is to check the method experimentally in the real conditions of the present noise, finite dynamic range of the imaging camera, and system misalignments. The experiments have shown strong dependence of the linearity of the relationship on image noise and overall image intensity, which depends on the aberration level. Also, the restoration capability and the rate of convergence of the AO system for aberrations generated by the deformable mirror are experi- mentally investigated. The presented approach as well as the experimental results finds practical application in compensation of static aberration in adaptive microscopic imaging system.