Abstract
Ocular optics is normally estimated based on up to 2,600 measurement points within the pupil of the eye, which implies a lateral resolution of approximately 175 µm for a 9 mm pupil diameter. This is because information below this resolution is not thought to be relevant or even possible to obtain with current measurement systems. In this work, we characterize the in vivo ocular optics of the human eye with a lateral resolution of 8.6 µm, which implies roughly 1 million measurement points for a pupil diameter of 9 mm. The results suggest that the normal human eye presents a series of hitherto unknown optical patterns with amplitudes between 200 and 300 nm and is made up of a series of in-phase peaks and valleys. If the results are analysed at only high lateral frequencies, the human eye is also found to contain a whole range of new information. This discovery could have a great impact on the way we understand some fundamental mechanisms of human vision and could be of outstanding utility in certain fields of ophthalmology.
Highlights
Ocular optics is normally estimated based on up to 2,600 measurement points within the pupil of the eye, which implies a lateral resolution of approximately 175 μm for a 9 mm pupil diameter
In 1961, Smirnov developed an advanced version of the Scheiner d isk[1] to subjectively estimate the optical imperfections of the eye, called aberrations or phase map, in a process named ocular aberrometry[2]. He anticipated that his invention would have no practical application, stating that “... the calculations take 10–12 h [...] it is unlikely that such detailed measurements will ever be adopted by practitioner-ophthalmologists.”
There are several options for the estimation of ocular aberrations based on different techniques, i.e., Hartmann-Shack sensors (H–S)[3], pyramidal sensors (P-S)[4], interferometric techniques[5], laser ray tracing[6] and curvature sensors[7]
Summary
Ocular optics is normally estimated based on up to 2,600 measurement points within the pupil of the eye, which implies a lateral resolution of approximately 175 μm for a 9 mm pupil diameter. Techniques based on H–S sensors are the most widely used in ophthalmology They are restricted to sampling the phase map at up to 2,600 measurement points within the pupil of the eye (approximately 175 μm of lateral resolution for a 9 mm pupil d iameter8) and suffer from a limited dynamic range[9]. P-S generally suffers from non-linear behaviour, diffraction effects between its different pupil images, and a relatively limited dynamic range as a result of the trade-off between the slope accuracy and achievable spatial r esolution[11] These drawbacks cause the phase maps obtained to be somewhat fuzzy, and the details that can be visualized do not match the theoretical r esolution[8]. Some authors have already drawn attention to the inefficiency of this a pproach[17]
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