ultifocal intraocular lenses (IOLs) with two or more foci can be used to replace the opacified natural lens during routine cataract surgery. They are recommended by cataract surgeons as the replacement lenses of choice when patients wish to avoid wearing spectacles. However, some patients implanted with multifocal IOLs report glare and halos at night, and the assessment of the objective optical quality of these lenses deserves interest.Differences in the design of diffractive IOLs translate into differences in optical quality at their foci, through-focus performance, and halo features, which can offer further information to surgeons when selecting which IOL to implant. In addition to being objective and patient independent, optical bench testing of multifocal IOLs has the ability to control factors that are difficult to address in clinical essays such as pupil diameter, lens alignment and tilt, and level of corneal spherical aberration on the multifocal IOL.The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) standards 11979-2 and 11979-9 define the guidelines for the in vitro measurement of the optical quality of an IOL. Optical bench evaluation of the modulation transfer function (MTF) provides valuable information about the optical quality of IOLs. [1][2][3] The correlations existing between a trifocal IOL, a varifocal IOL, and a monofocal IOL using the "ex vivo" optical bench through-focus image quality analysis and the clinical visual performance in real patients by study of the defocus curve were investigated. Significant correlations were found between logMAR visual acuity and image quality metric for the multifocal and monofocal IOLs analyzed. Ex vivo find-M ABSTRACT PURPOSE: To experimentally compare the optical performance of three types of hydrophobic intraocular lenses (IOLs): extended depth of focus, bifocal, and trifocal. METHODS:The tested IOLs were: TECNIS ZMB00 (bifocal; Abbott Medical Optics, Abbott Park, IL), TECNIS Symfony ZXR00 (extended depth of focus; Abbott Medical Optics), and FineVision GFree hydrophobic (trifocal; PhysIOL, Liège, Belgium). Their surface topography was analyzed by optical microscopy. Modulation transfer function (MTF) and spherical aberrations were determined on optical bench for variable pupil apertures and with two cornea models (0 µm and +0.28 µm). United States Air Force target imaging was analyzed for different focal points (near, intermediate, and far). Point spread function (PSF) and halos were quantified and compared. RESULTS:The three lenses presented step-like optic topography. For a pupil size of 3 mm or greater, clearly distinctive MTF peaks were observed for all lenses: two peaks for the extended depth of focus and bifocal lenses with +1.75 and +4.00 diopters (D) addition, respectively, and three peaks for the trifocal lens with +1.75 and +3.50 addition for intermediate and near vision, respectively. The extended depth of focus and bifocal lens had slightly higher MTF at best focus with the +0.28 µm cornea model than with the 0 µm model, whereas the tri...

ICON Far UltraViolet (FUV) imager contributes to the ICON science objectives by providing remote sensing measurements of the daytime and nighttime atmosphere/ionosphere. During sunlit atmospheric conditions, ICON FUV images the limb altitude profile in the shortwave (SW) band at 135.6 nm and the longwave (LW) band at 157 nm perpendicular to the satellite motion to retrieve the atmospheric O/N 2 ratio. In conditions of atmospheric darkness, ICON FUV measures the 135.6 nm recombination emission of O + ions used to compute the nighttime ionospheric altitude distribution. ICON Far UltraViolet (FUV) imager is a Czerny-Turner design Spectrographic Imager with two exit slits and corresponding back imager cameras that produce two independent images in separate wavelength bands on two detectors. All observations will be processed as limb altitude profiles. In addition, the ionospheric 135.6 nm data will be processed as longitude and latitude spatial maps to obtain images of ion distributions around regions of equatorial spread F. The ICON FUV optic axis is pointed 20 degrees below local horizontal and has a steering mirror that allows the field of view to be steered up to 30 degrees forward and aft, to keep the local magnetic meridian in the field of view. The detectors are micro channel plate (MCP) intensified FUV tubes with the phosphor fiber-optically coupled to Charge Coupled Devices (CCDs). The dual stack MCP-s amplify the photoelectron signals to overcome the CCD noise and the rapidly scanned frames are co-added to digitally create 12-second integrated images. Digital on-board signal processing is used to compensate for geometric distortion and satellite motion and to achieve data compression. The instrument was originally aligned in visible light by using a special grating and visible cameras. Final alignment, functional and environmental testing and calibration were performed in a large vacuum chamber with

Most optical systems present chromatic aberration quantified along the optical axis by the longitudinal chromatic aberration (LCA). LCA is controlled by the biomaterial Abbe number combined with diffractive effects, driven by the intraocular lens (IOL) topography. This study experimentally aimed at describing the effect in vitro of LCA in diffractive multifocal IOLs, with the help of dedicated optical benches and topographic characterization.

Context. One of the long-term goals of exoplanet science is the atmospheric characterization of dozens of small exoplanets in order to understand their diversity and search for habitable worlds and potential biosignatures. Achieving this goal requires a space mission of sufficient scale that can spatially separate the signals from exoplanets and their host stars and thus directly scrutinize the exoplanets and their atmospheres. Aims. We seek to quantify the exoplanet detection performance of a space-based mid-infrared (MIR) nulling interferometer that measures the thermal emission of exoplanets. We study the impact of various parameters and compare the performance with that of large single-aperture mission concepts that detect exoplanets in reflected light. Methods. We have developed an instrument simulator that considers all major astrophysical noise sources and coupled it with Monte Carlo simulations of a synthetic exoplanet population around main-sequence stars within 20 pc of the Sun. This allows us to quantify the number (and types) of exoplanets that our mission concept could detect. Considering single visits only, we discuss two different scenarios for distributing 2.5 yr of an initial search phase among the stellar targets. Different apertures sizes and wavelength ranges are investigated. Results. An interferometer consisting of four 2 m apertures working in the 4–18.5 μ.m wavelength range with a total instrument throughput of 5% could detect up to ≈550 exoplanets with radii between 0.5 and 6 R⊕ with an integrated S/N ≥ 7. At least ≈160 of the detected exoplanets have radii ≤1.5 R⊕. Depending on the observing scenario, ≈25–45 rocky exoplanets (objects with radii between 0.5 and 1.5 R⊕) orbiting within the empirical habitable zone (eHZ) of their host stars are among the detections. With four 3.5 m apertures, the total number of detections can increase to up to ≈770, including ≈60–80 rocky eHZ planets. With four times 1 m apertures, the maximum detection yield is ≈315 exoplanets, including ≤20 rocky eHZ planets. The vast majority of small, temperate exoplanets are detected around M dwarfs. The impact of changing the wavelength range to 3–20 μm or 6–17 μm on the detection yield is negligible. Conclusions. A large space-based MIR nulling interferometer will be able to directly detect hundreds of small, nearby exoplanets, tens of which would be habitable world candidates. This shows that such a mission can compete with large single-aperture reflected light missions. Further increasing the number of habitable world candidates, in particular around solar-type stars, appears possible via the implementation of a multi-visit strategy during the search phase. The high median S/N of most of the detected planets will allow for first estimates of their radii and effective temperatures and will help prioritize the targets for a second mission phase to obtain high-S/N thermal emission spectra, leveraging the superior diagnostic power of the MIR regime compared to shorter wavelengths.

Context. The Large Interferometer For Exoplanets (LIFE) initiative is developing the science and a technology road map for an ambitious space mission featuring a space-based mid-infrared (MIR) nulling interferometer in order to detect the thermal emission of hundreds of exoplanets and characterize their atmospheres. Aims. In order to quantify the science potential of such a mission, in particular in the context of technical trade-offs, an instrument simulator is required. In addition, signal extraction algorithms are needed to verify that exoplanet properties (e.g., angular separation and spectral flux) contained in simulated exoplanet data sets can be accurately retrieved. Methods. We present LIFEsim, a software tool developed for simulating observations of exoplanetary systems with an MIR space-based nulling interferometer. It includes astrophysical noise sources (i.e., stellar leakage and thermal emission from local zodiacal and exozodiacal dust) and offers the flexibility to include instrumental noise terms in the future. Here, we provide some first quantitative limits on instrumental effects that would allow the measurements to remain in the fundamental noise limited regime. We demonstrate updated signal extraction approaches to validating signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) estimates from the simulator. Monte Carlo simulations are used to generate a mock survey of nearby terrestrial exoplanets and determine to which accuracy fundamental planet properties can be retrieved. Results. LIFEsim provides an accessible way to predict the expected S/N of future observations as a function of various key instrument and target parameters. The S/Ns of the extracted spectra are photon noise dominated, as expected from our current simulations. Signals from multi-planet systems can be reliably extracted. From single-epoch observations in our mock survey of small (R < 1.5 REarth) planets orbiting within the habitable zones of their stars, we find that typical uncertainties in the estimated effective temperature of the exoplanets are ≲10%, for the exoplanet radius ≲20%, and for the separation from the host star ≲2%. Signal-to-noise-ratio values obtained in the signal extraction process deviate by less than 10% from purely photon-counting statistics-based S/Ns. Conclusions. LIFEsim has been sufficiently well validated so that it can be shared with a broader community interested in quantifying various exoplanet science cases that a future space-based MIR nulling interferometer could address. Reliable signal extraction algorithms exist, and our results underline the power of the MIR wavelength range for deriving fundamental exoplanet properties from single-epoch observations.