| Abstract |
The last three years have seen tremendous improvements in the imaging of the retina. Using ultra-wide band optical sources, which emit a few cycles of light, submicron depth resolution was demonstrated in OCT. When such sources were used in imaging the eye, axial resolution of 2 microns in the cornea and 3 microns in the retina were reported.In parallel, advancement in applying principles of closed adaptive optics have led to improvements in the transverse resolution of scanning laser ophthalmoscopy to below 4 microns, which in principle could be translated to OCT.However, micro-saccades and involuntary eye movements may exceed by several orders of magnitude the resolution values above. The present proposal aims to investigate methods and devise systems that will allow OCT imaging systems to achieve their high resolution capability by eliminating or at least attenuating the effects of eye movements.Eye tracking requires simultaneous accomplishment of seemingly contradictory requirements, such as: (i) long depth range and fast acquisition speed, (ii) high depth resolution, high sensitivity and ability to operate in regimes of low optical powers applied to the eye that are within the safety standards. The research will focus on novel methods for long range, fast, high sensitivity and high resolution tracking of axial eye movement that will operate in appropriate spectral bands and at a sampling rate compatible with OCT scanning and imaging. The research will also address for the first time, combining methods of axial eye tracking with compatible methods of transverse eye tracking. Each year, the fellow will transfer the results of hardware optics research performed in the home laboratory into imaging systems at the overseas institution to evaluate the improvement in the quality of OCT scans of patients and accuracy of OCT-scan inferred measurements. Different novel versions of axial, transversal, combined axial and transversal trackers will be researched. |