Adaptive optical microscopy: the ongoing quest for a perfect image

Adaptive optics is becoming a valuable tool for high resolution microscopy, providing correction for aberrations introduced by the refractive index structure of specimens. This is proving particularly promising for applications that require images from deep within biological tissue specimens. We rev...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Light, science & applications science & applications, 2014-04, Vol.3 (4), p.e165-e165
Main Author: Booth, Martin J
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
639/624/1075/1076
639/624/1107/328
Aberration
Adaptive optics
Applied and Technical Physics
Atomic
Classical and Continuum Physics
High resolution
Lasers
Microscopes
Microscopy
Molecular
Optical and Plasma Physics
Optical Devices
Optics
Photonics
Physics
Physics and Astronomy
Refractive index
Refractivity
review
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Summary:Adaptive optics is becoming a valuable tool for high resolution microscopy, providing correction for aberrations introduced by the refractive index structure of specimens. This is proving particularly promising for applications that require images from deep within biological tissue specimens. We review recent developments in adaptive microscopy, including methods and applications. A range of advances in different microscope modalities is covered and prospects for the future are discussed. Microscopy: adaptive enhancement Adaptive optics is used to improve image quality across a wide range of microscopy techniques. Martin Booth from the University of Oxford in the UK reviews how technologies such as deformable mirrors and spatial light modulators, which compensate for aberrations by locally controlling the wavefront of a light wave, are now improving the performance of multiphoton, confocal, widefield and super-resolution microscopes. The benefits of such improvements are especially appealing for images captured from within biological tissue (focal distances of tens to hundreds of micrometres), where low-order aberrations associated with smooth phase variations occur. One future challenge is the development of efficient measurement and correction schemes for higher-order phase variations.
ISSN:2047-7538
2047-7538
DOI:10.1038/lsa.2014.46