Determination and correction of aberrations in full field OCT using phase gradient autofocus by maximizing the likelihood function

Abstract

A method for numerical estimation and correction of aberrations of the eye in fundus imaging with optical coherence tomography (OCT) is presented. Aberrations are determined statistically by using the estimate based on likelihood function maximization. The method can be considered as an extension of the phase gradient autofocusing algorithm in synthetic aperture radar imaging to 2D optical aberrations correction. The efficiency of the proposed method has been demonstrated in OCT fundus imaging with 6λ aberrations. After correction, single photoreceptors were resolved. It is also shown that wavefront distortions with high spatial frequencies can be determined and corrected.