Adaptive optics enhanced simultaneous en-face optical coherence tomography and scanning laser ophthalmoscopy

A novel combination of adaptive optics with a simultaneous en-face OCT/SLO system for high resolution imaging of the in-vivo human retina is presented. Pairs of retinal images are shown and performance of the system is evaluated with and without dynamic wavefront correction. The adaptive optics closed loop system operates at a frame rate of 9 Hz and incorporates a Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor based on a highly sensitive Andor camera and a 37 actuator OKO membrane deformable mirror to correct for ocular aberrations. The system produces C-scan pairs of images at a frame rate of 2 Hz. The correction of aberrations produced by the adaptive optics closed-loop system increased the signal-to-noise ratio in images obtained from volunteer eyes by up to 6 dB in the OCT channel and up to 9 dB in the SLO channel. A slight improvement in the lateral resolution was also obtained, from 6.5 mu m before to 5 mu m after closing the adaptive optics loop. (c) 2006 Optical Society of America.