Adaptive Optics for Wide-field Microscopy

We report on recent developments in the use of adaptive optics (AO) in wide-field microscopy to remove both system and sample induced aberrations. We describe progress on using both a full AO system and image optimization techniques (wavefront sensorless AO). In the latter system the determination of the best mirror shape is found via two routes. In the first an optimization algorithm using a Simplex search pattern is used with an initial random set of mirror shapes. We then explore the use of specific Zernike terms as our starting basis set. In both cases the final optimization performance is not affected by the choice of optimization metric. We then describe an open loop AO system in which the equivalent of a laser guide star is used as the light source for the wavefront sensor.