Cataract is one of the most frequent reasons of blindness all around the world. Its treatment relies on removing the pathologically altered crystalline lens and replacing it with an artificial intraocular lens (IOL). There exists plenty of types of such implants, which differ in the optical materials and designs (shapes). However one of the important features, which is rather overlooked in the development of the intraocular implants is the chromatic aberration and its influence on the retinal image quality. In this study authors try to estimate the influence of the design and optical material of the implant on the retinal image quality in the polychromatic light, taking into consideration several exemplary types of IOLs which are commercially available. Authors also propose the partially achromatized hybrid IOLs, the longitudinal chromatic aberration (LCA)of which reduces the total LCA of the phakic eye to the level of a healthy eye's LCA. Several image characteristics, as the polychromatic Point Spread Function (PSF) and the Modulation Transfer Function (MTF) and the polychromatic encircled energy are estimated. The results of the simulations show the significance of the partial chromatic aberration correction.

Date Published: 13 July 2007
PDF: 10 pages
Proc. SPIE 6633, Biophotonics 2007: Optics in Life Science, 663329 (13 July 2007); doi: 10.1117/12.728358

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 6633:
Biophotonics 2007: Optics in Life Science
Jürgen Popp; Gert von Bally, Editor(s)