Axial range of conjugate adaptive optics in two-photon microscopy

TL;DR

This paper introduces a conjugate adaptive optics method for two-photon microscopy that significantly extends the field of view compared to traditional approaches, maintaining performance over axial shifts of the deformable mirror.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel conjugate AO configuration for two-photon microscopy, demonstrating enhanced field of view and robustness to axial misalignments.

Findings

Conjugate AO provides a larger field of view than pupil-conjugate AO.

The extended field of view is maintained over significant axial shifts.

The technique has potential for improved biological imaging.

Abstract

We describe an adaptive optics technique for two-photon microscopy in which the deformable mirror used for aberration compensation is positioned in a plane conjugate to the plane of the aberration. We demonstrate in a proof-of-principle experiment that this technique yields a large field of view advantage in comparison to standard pupil-conjugate adaptive optics. Further, we show that the extended field of view in conjugate AO is maintained over a relatively large axial translation of the deformable mirror with respect to the conjugate plane. We conclude with a discussion of limitations and prospects for the conjugate AO technique in two-photon biological microscopy.