Using structural aberration coefficients to filter first order starting points for reflective freeform zoom ophthalmoscopes

Adaptive optics ophthalmoscopes are optical systems used to image retinas in vivo at single-cell resolution. These systems have traditionally been designed with a fixed exit-pupil size to match a typical dilated pupil size, but an optical zoom system introduces the flexibility to adapt for a wider patient range. Reflective freeform zoom ophthalmoscope systems are novel designs whose performance highly depends on a well corrected starting point. A common design approach is to generate a large number of first order starting points which are candidates for further optimization. Currently, there is no metric to filter through these starting points, and individually optimizing them in optical design software is time consuming. We investigate a paraxial optimization method that minimizes the structural aberration coefficients across zoom positions. This eliminates the manual optimization of each individual starting point in design software, making the design process much more efficient.