Adaptive optics for microscopy

Practical guides to implementation

A repository for beginners guides, hints, tips and tricks on how to implement adaptive optics in microscopes and related optical systems. Hosted by the Dynamic Optics and Photonics Group, Department of Engineering Science, University of Oxford.

Adaptive Optics is a valuable tool that can enhance the performance of a broad range of optical systems, but it is often considered challenging to implement. This website provides a range of information to help understand and implement this technology, particularly for microscopy and related methods.

To learn more about the motivation for the site, see the About page. The documents themselves can be found in the Documents section below. If you don’t know where to start, the Basic introduction document gives a broad introduction to the field. Finally, to give feedback or ask any questions, please use the Contact form.

This document describes the use of a deformable mirror in closed-loop using a Shack-Hartmann sensor.
This tutorial discusses the static calibration of a deformable mirror using a Twyman--Green interferometer setup, combined with single-frame fringe analysis for phase extraction. We provide a reference implementation for this method in the form of a toolbox written in Python. In addition, we include detailed instructions to build a compact, slot-in interferometer. This protocol, accompanying software, and hardware design facilitate calibration of deformable mirrors for a range of applications.