Physics (Internal)

Exploiting Linearity in Adaptive Optical Microscopy

This event is part of the Departmental Seminars.

Dissertation Committee: Bennett Goldberg, Thomas Bifano, Jerome Mertz, Steve Ahlen, Pankaj Mehta

Abstract: In adaptive optical microscopy, placing a spatial light modulator (SLM) in the pupil plane allows us to manipulate aberrations in the optical path through physical access to the coherent transfer function. This reduces a number of problems in imaging to a single common linear propagation equation. In this talk, I review the theory behind adaptive optics and present three examples where aberrations are present in the system. In each example the aberration arises from a different source: the medium in which the object lies, the microscope system, or the object itself. In all cases, the aberration can be reformulated as a modification of a linear transfer function, and inverted to provide new information about the sample.