Adaptive optics correction of a tunable fluidic lens for ophthalmic applications

Tunable fluidic lenses are utilizing curvature change via continuously adjusting injected liquid volumes to achieve variable-focusing properties. Nevertheless, the nature of curvature change and refractive index mismatch causes inherent spatial aberrations that severely degrade image quality. Here we present the experimental study of the aberrations in tunable fluidic lenses and use of adaptive optics to compensate for the wavefront errors. Adaptive optics based scheme is demonstrated for three injected liquid volumes, resulting in a substantial reduction of the wavefront errors from 0.42, 1.05, 1.49 to 0.20, 0.21, 0.23 μm, respectively, corresponding to the focal length tunability of 100–200 mm.