Aberrations of

Optical
Systems
Othman Al-Abbadi, M.D
• Imperfections of image formation are due to
several mechanisms

• The refracting system of the eye is also subject to

aberrations, but there are correcting mechanisms built into
the eye itself.
Inde
x
• Chromatic
aberration
• Spherical aberration
• Oblique astigmatism
• Coma
• Image distortion
• Curvature of field
Chromatic
Aberration
• When white light is refracted at an optical interface, it is
dispersed into its component wavelengths or colors .

• The shorter the wavelength of the light, the more it

is deviated on refraction.

• Thus a series of colored images are formed when white

light is incident upon a spherical lens
Correction of Chromatic
Aberration
• The dispersive power of a material is independent of
its refractive index.

Thus, there are materials of high dispersive power but

low refractive index, and vice versa.
Achromatic
Lens
• Special optics design of two mated lens – concave and
convex
– which more precisely focus the wavelengths of light
onto the same plane.

• Achromatic lens systems are composed of elements

(lenses) of varying material combined so that the
dispersion is neutralized while the overall refractive power
is preserved
• The earliest achromatic lenses were made by
combining elements of flint and crown glass.
Ocular
application
• Refraction by the human eye is also subject to
chromatic aberration, the total dispersion
from the red to the blue image being
approximately
2-D.
• The emmetropic eye focuses for the yellow–
green (555 nm) as this is the peak wavelength
of the photopic relative luminosity curve.
• This wavelength focus lies between the blue
and red foci, being slightly nearer to the red
• Examined by duochrome test
photopic luminosity
curve
DUOCHROME TEST
• The Duochrome test can be used to verify the
near addition.

• It is based on the chromatic aberration of the

eye.

• The test is of particular use in the refraction of

myopic patients, who experience eye strain if
they are overcorrected (and thus rendered
hypermetropic), forcing them to use their
accommodation for near vision.
• Red & green are used because their wavelength
foci straddle the yellow-green by equal amounts
~0.4D

• Myopics see red letters more clearly, & vice

versa.

• The test is sensitive to an alteration in refraction

of 0.25 D or less.
Directions for use :
• If the near vision correction is too strong, the subject
will spontaneously see the letters with greater contrast
and blacker on the red background.
If the letters are seen clearer on the
green background, it means that the
near correction is too weak.
• Color blindness doesn’t invalidates the test due to its
dependence on the position of the image with
respect to the retina NOT on color discrimination.

• A color-blind should be asked which side’s letters

appears clearer.

• The eye with overactive accommodation may still

require too much minus sphere in order to
balance the red and green. Cycloplegia may be
necessary.
Spherical
Aberration
• It was seen that the prismatic effect of a spherical lens is
least in the paraxial zone and increases towards the
periphery of the lens.

• Thus, rays passing through the periphery of the lens are

deviated more than those passing through the paraxial
zone of the lens
• In other words, the parallel light rays of incoming light
do not converge at the same point after passing
through the lens. Because of this, Spherical Aberration
can affect resolution and clarity, making it hard to
obtain sharp images.

• Results in out-of-focus image.

Spherical lens:
Peripheral rays have shorter
focal length than paraxial rays.
Correction of Spherical
Aberration
• Spherical aberration may be reduced by occluding
the periphery of the lens by the use of 'stops' so
that only the paraxial zone is used.
• To achieve the best results, spherical surfaces must be
abandoned and the lenses ground with aplanatic
surfaces; that is, the peripheral curvature is less than the
central curvature .
• Aspherical lenses are lenses with complex curved
surfaces, such as where the radius of curvature changes
according to distance from the optical axis.
aspheric doublet
lens
• Another technique of reducing spherical aberration is to
employ a doublet. This consists of a principal lens and a
somewhat weaker lens of different refractive index
cemented together .

• The weaker lens must be of opposite power, and because

it too has spherical aberration, it will reduce the power
of the periphery of the principal lens more than the
central zone.

• Usually, such doublets are designed to be both aspheric

and achromatic.
aspheric doublet
lens.
Ocular
application
• The effect of spherical aberration in the human eye
is reduced by several factors:

• (1) The anterior corneal surface is flatter

peripherally than at its centre, and therefore acts
as an aplanatic surface.
• (2) The nucleus of the lens of the eye has a higher
refractive index than the lens cortex… Thus the axial
zone of the lens has greater refractive power than
the periphery.
• (3) The iris acts as a stop to reduce spherical
aberration. The impairment of visual acuity that
occurs when the pupil is dilated is almost entirely due
to spherical aberration (Optimum pupil size is 2–2.5
mm.)
• (4) Retinal cones are much more sensitive to light which
enters the eye paraxially than to light which enters
obliquely through the peripheral cornea (Stiles–
Crawford effect).
• This directional sensitivity of the cone
photoreceptors limits the visual effects of the
residual spherical aberration in the eye.
Oblique
astigmatism
• Occurs when rays of light traverse a spherical lens
obliquely… a toric effect is introduced forming a Sturm’s
conoid
• Occurs with spectacle lenses when the light of sight is
NOT parallel with the principal axis of the lens.
• Worse with higher power lenses.
• Less with meniscus (convex-concave) lenses.
• NB size of pupil makes no difference
• Can be corrected by Pantoscopic tilt of the glasses due to
the fact that adults spend most of their time looking
slightly downward from the primary position.
Ocular
application
•Occurs in the eye but its visual effect is minimal… Due to:
1.Aplanatic surface of the cornea reduces oblique
astigmatism
as well as spherical aberration
2.Retina is a spherical surface ; the circle of least confusion of
the Sturm’s conoid formed by oblique astigmatism falls on
the retina.
3.Astigmatic image falls on peripheral retina which has poor
resolving power compared to the macula; visual
appreciation of astigmatic image is limited.
Com
a• Spherical aberration applied to light coming from points
NOT lying on the principal axis.
• Rays passing through the periphery of the lens are deviated
more than central rays & come to a focus nearer the
principal axis.
• Results in unequal magnification of the image formed
by different zones of the lens.
• Differs from spherical aberration in that the image formed
is laterally displaced.
Ocular
application
• May be avoided by limiting to the axial area of the lens.
• Not of clinical significance due to the same reasons for
oblique astigmatism… which are:
1.Aplanatic surface of the
cornea 2.Retina is a spherical
surface
3.Coma image falls on peripheral retina which has poor
resolving power compared to the macula; visual
appreciation of astigmatic image is limited
Wave front
technology
 Optical
aberration is an imperfection in
the image formation of an optical system.

 Aberrations fall into two classes:

 monochromatic and
 chromatic.
 Monochromatic aberrations are caused by the
geometry of the lens and occur both when
light is reflected and when it is refracted.
They appear even when using
monochromatic light, hence the name.

 Chromatic aberrations are caused by

dispersion, the variation of a lens's
refractive index with wavelength. They do
not appear when monochromatic light is
used.
 One needs to keep in mind these
important points: unlike the standard eye
model, an actual eye is:
 An active optical system, with adjustable
components and aberrations varying in
time,
 It is not strictly centered system,
 It is not a rotationally symmetrical system,
and
 Final perception is the subject of
 Aberrations can be defined as the difference
in optical path length (OPL) between any ray
passing through a point in the pupillary plane
and the chief ray passing through the pupil
center.


This is called the optical path
difference (OPD) and would be for a
perfect optical system.
 Wavefront aberrometer shines a perfectly
shaped wave of light into the eye and captures
reflections distorted based on the eye’s
surface contours.

 Thus,it generates a map of the optical

system of the eye, which can be used to
prescribe a solution, correcting the patient’s
specific vision problem.
 Another way of characterizing the wavefront is to
measure the actual slope of light rays exiting the
pupil plane at different points in the plane and
compare these to the ideal; the direction of
propagation of light rays will be perpendicular to
the wavefront.
 Thisis the basic principle behind the Hartman-
Shack devices commonly used to measure the
wavefront.
 Wavefronts exiting the pupil plane are allowed to
interact with a microlenslet array.
 If the wavefront is a perfect flat sheet, it will form a
perfect lattice of point images corresponding to the
optical axis of each lenslet.

If the wavefront is aberrated, the local slope of the
wavefront will be different for each lenslet and result
in a displaced spot on the grid as compared to the
ideal.
 The displacement in location from the actual spot
versus the ideal represents a measure of the shape of
the wavefront.
 Wavefront maps are commonly displayed as
2-dimensional maps.


The color green indicates minimal
wavefront distortion from the ideal.


While blue is characteristic of
myopic wavefronts and red is
characteristic of hyperopic wavefront
errors.
 Once the wavefront image is captured, it can be
analyzed.

One method of wavefront analysis and
classification is to consider each wavefront map to
be the weighted sum of fundamental shapes.

Zernike and Fourier transforms are polynomial
equations that have been adapted for this
purpose.
 Zernike polynomials have proven especially useful
since they contain radial components and the
shape of the wavefront follows that of the pupil,
 Following the above division of the Zernike
expansion adopted in ophthalmology,
monochromatic eye aberrations are addressed as:

(1)lower-order aberrations, with the Zernike radial

order n<3, and

(2) higher-order aberrations, with n≥3.

 The important optical aberrations that
affect vision are:
 2ndOrder optical aberrations – currently
measured in all eye exams providing
sphere, cylinder and axis corrections

 3rd and 4th Order optical aberrations –

high order aberrations currently not
measured in today’s eye exams but can
account for up to 20% of the eye’s
 5thand 6th Order optical aberrations –also
high order aberrations not currently measured
in
today’s eye exam.

 These aberrations are of less significance

clinically, however they manifest in reduced
vision for a small percentage of eyes.
 The lower-order aberrations are
 Piston
 Tilt
 Defocus
 Astigmatism

 The 2nd order aberrations, defocus and

primary astigmatism - are the most
significant contributors to the overall
magnitude of eye aberrations
 Remaining lower-order forms, piston and
tilt, or distortion, are usually ignored.


The former being not an aberration
with a single imaging pupil, and


The latter being not a point-image
quality aberration).
 Higher order aberrations are measured with
wavefront aberrometers and expressed in
terms that describe the shape and severity of
the deviated light rays as they pass through
the eye's optical system and strike the retina.


Coma, spherical aberration, and trefoil are
the most common higher order aberrations .

Coma causes light to be smeared like the tail
of a comet in the night sky.

 Double vision is a common symptom of coma.

 Trefoil causes a point of light to smear in three

directions, like a Mercedes-Benz symbol.


Spherical aberration is characterized by halos,
starbursts, ghost images, and loss of contrast
sensitivity (inability to see fine detail) in low light.
 Starbursts – Patterns of Small Lights Around
Light Sources
 Haloes – Circles of Light Around Light
Sources
 Ghosting – A Faint Duplicate of Each Object
Similar to Double Vision
 Glare – Intensification of Light Sources.

 It'squite common for a patient to have an increase

in all of these aberrations, resulting in distorted
night vision when the pupil opens and allows light
to enter through a larger area of the irregular
 A comet-like tail or directional flare appearing in the
retinal image, when a point source is viewed.

Because the eye is a somewhat nonaxial
imaging device, and because the cornea and lens
are not perfectly centered with respect to the
pupil, coma generally is present in all human
eyes.

A large amount of coma (0.3 μm of coma alone)
may point to known corneal diseases, such as
keratoconus.
 Fortunately, spherical aberration is
relatively easy to understand.
 For a normal photopic eye, spherical
aberration may vary from
approximately 0.25 D to almost 2 D.
 Light rays entering the central area of
a lens are bent less and come to a
sharp focus at the focal point of a lens
system.
 However, peripheral light rays tend to
be bent more by the edge of a given
lens system so that in a plus lens, the
light rays are focused in front of the
normal focal point of the lens and
secondary images are created.
 This is why many lens systems
incorporate an aspheric grind,
so that the periphery of the lens
system gradually tapers and
refracts or bends light to a lesser
degree than if this optical
adaptation was not included.
 The variation in index of
refraction of the crystalline lens
(higher index in the nucleus,
lower index in the cortex) is
responsible for neutralization of a
good part of the spherical
aberration caused by the human
 Because the index of refraction of the
ocular components of the eye varies with
wavelength, colored objects located at the
same distance from the eye are imaged at
different distances with respect to the retina.

 Thisphenomenon is called axial chromatic

aberration. In the human eye the magnitude
of chromatic aberration is approximately 3
D.
 However, significant colored fringes around
objects generally are not seen because of
the preferential spectral sensitivity of
human photoreceptors.

 Studieshave shown that humans are many

times more sensitive to yellow–green light
with a central wavelength at 560 nm than
to red or blue light.
Optical aberration is an imperfection in
the image formation of an optical system.

Aberrations fall into two classes:

monochromatic and
chromatic.
Ideal Optical System
Stigmatic
imaging

Geometrical
similarity
No Field Curvature
SHACK HARTMAN
TEST
Monochromatic aberrations are caused by the
geometry of the lens and occur both when light is
reflected and when it is refracted. They appear
even when using monochromatic light, hence the
name.

Chromatic aberrations are caused by

dispersion, the variation of a lens's refractive
index with wavelength. They do not appear
when monochromatic light is used.
One needs to keep in mind these important
points: unlike the standard eye model, an actual
eye is:

An active optical system, with adjustable

components and aberrations varying in time,
It is not strictly centered system,
It is not a rotationally symmetrical system,
and
Final perception is the subject of
neural processing.
 WAVEFRONT
ANALYSIS
 Aberrations can be defined as the difference in optical path length (OPL)
between any ray passing through a point in the pupillary plane and the chief ray
passing through the pupil center.

 This is called the optical p difference (OPD)

and wou for a perfect optical syste
ath
ld
be
m.
Wavefront aberrometer shines a perfectly shaped
wave of light into the eye and captures
reflections distorted based on the eye’s surface
contours.

Thus, it generates a map of the optical system

of the eye, which can be used to prescribe a
solution, correcting the patient’s specific vision
problem.
Another way of characterizing the wavefront is to
measure the actual slope of light rays exiting the pupil
plane at different points in the plane and compare
these to the ideal; the direction of propagation of light
rays will be perpendicular to the wavefront.

This is the basic principle behind the Hartman-

Shack devices commonly used to measure the
wavefront.

Wavefronts exiting the pupil plane are allowed to

interact with a microlenslet array.
If the wavefront is a perfect flat sheet, it will form a
perfect lattice of point images corresponding to
the optical axis of each lenslet.

 If the wavefront is aberrated, the local slope of

the wavefront will be different for each lenslet and
result in a displaced spot on the grid as compared
to the ideal.

The displacement in location from the actual spot

versus the ideal represents a measure of the
Wavefront maps are commonly displayed as 2-
dimensional maps.

 The color green indicates minimal

wavefront distortion from the ideal.

 While blue is characteristic of myopic

wavefronts and red is characteristic of hyperopic
wavefront errors.
Once the wavefront image is captured, it can
be analyzed.

 One method of wavefront analysis and classification

is to consider each wavefront map to be the weighted
sum of fundamental shapes.

 Zernike and Fourier transforms are polynomial

equations that have been adapted for this purpose.

Zernike polynomials have proven especially useful

since they contain radial components and the shape of
Wave front
technology
Following the above division of the Zernike
expansion adopted in ophthalmology,
monochromatic eye aberrations are
addressed as:

(1)lower-order aberrations, with the Zernike radial

order n<3, and

(2) higher-order aberrations, with n≥3.

The important optical aberrations that affect vision are:

2nd Order optical aberrations – currently measured

in all eye exams providing sphere, cylinder and axis
corrections

3rd and 4th Order optical aberrations – high order

aberrations currently not measured in today’s
eye exams but can account for up to 20% of the
eye’s refractive error.
5th and 6th Order optical aberrations –also high
order aberrations not currently measured in today’s
eye exam.

These aberrations are of less significance clinically,

however they manifest in reduced vision for a
small percentage of eyes.
 Lower-order aberrations
The lower-order aberrations are
Piston
Tilt
Defocus
Astigmatism

The 2nd order aberrations, defocus and primary

astigmatism - are the most significant contributors to
the overall magnitude of eye aberrations
Remaining lower-order forms, piston and tilt,
or distortion, are usually ignored.

 The former being not an aberration with a

single imaging pupil, and

 The latter being not a point-image

quality aberration).
Higher order
aberrations
Higher order aberrations are measured with
wavefront aberrometers and expressed in terms
that describe the shape and severity of the
deviated light rays as they pass through the
eye's optical system and strike the retina.

 Coma, spherical aberration, and trefoil are

the most common higher order aberrations .
 Coma causes light to be smeared like the tail
of a comet in the night sky.

 Double vision is a common symptom of coma.

Trefoil causes a point of light to smear in three

directions, like a Mercedes-Benz symbol.

 Spherical aberration is characterized by

halos, starbursts, ghost images, and loss of
contrast sensitivity (inability to see fine detail) in
low light.
Starbursts – Patterns of Small Lights Around
Light Sources
Haloes – Circles of Light Around Light Sources
Ghosting – A Faint Duplicate of Each Object
Similar to Double Vision
Glare – Intensification of Light Sources.

It's quite common for a patient to have an increase in

all of these aberrations, resulting in distorted night
vision when the pupil opens and allows light to enter
through a larger area of the irregular corneal surface.
Com
A comet-like tail or directional flare
a appearing in the retinal image, when a point
source is viewed.


Because the eye is a somewhat nonaxial
imaging device, and because the cornea and
lens are not perfectly centered with respect to
the pupil, coma generally is present in all
human eyes.


A large amount of coma (0.3 μm of coma
alone) may point to known corneal diseases,
Com
afrom points NOT lying on the principal axis.
Spherical aberration applied to light coming

Rays passing through the periphery of the lens

are deviated more than central rays & come to a
focus nearer the principal axis.
Results in unequal magnification of the
image formed by different zones of the lens.
Differs from spherical aberration in that the image
formed is laterally displaced.
Ocular
application
• May be avoided by limiting to the axial area of the
lens.
• Not of clinical significance due to the same
reasons for oblique astigmatism… which are:
1. Aplanatic surface of the cornea
2. Retina is a spherical surface
3. Coma image falls on peripheral retina which
has poor resolving power compared to the
macula; visual appreciation of astigmatic
image is limited
 Spherical
 Aberration
Fortunately, spherical aberration is
relatively easy to understand.

 For a normal photopic eye, spherical

aberration may vary from
approximately
0.25 D to almost 2 D.

 Light rays entering the central area of

a lens are bent less and come to a
sharp focus at the focal point of a lens
system.

 However, peripheral light rays tend to

be bent more by the edge of a given
lens system so that in a plus lens,
the light rays are focused in front of
This is why many lens systems
incorporate an aspheric grind, so
that the periphery of the lens
system gradually tapers and
refracts or bends light to a lesser
degree than if this optical
adaptation was not included.

The variation in index of

refraction of the crystalline lens
(higher index in the nucleus,
lower index in the cortex) is
responsible for neutralization of a
 It was seen that the prismatic effect of a
spherical lens is least in the paraxial zone and
increases towards the periphery of the lens.

Thus, rays passing through the periphery of

the lens are deviated more than those passing
through the paraxial zone of the lens
 In other words, the parallel light rays of incoming light
do not converge at the same point after passing
through the lens. Because of this, Spherical
Aberration can affect resolution and clarity, making it
hard to obtain sharp images.

 Results in out-of-focus image.

Spherical lens:
Peripheral rays have shorter
focal length than paraxial rays.
Correction of Spherical
Aberration
 Spherical aberration may be reduced by occluding the
periphery of the lens by the use of 'stops' so that only
the paraxial zone is used.
To achieve the best results, spherical surfaces
must be abandoned and the lenses ground with
aplanatic surfaces; that is, the peripheral
curvature is less than the central curvature .
Aspherical lenses are lenses with complex
curved surfaces, such as where the radius of
curvature changes according to distance from
the optical axis.
aspheric doublet
lens
Another technique of reducing spherical
aberration is to employ a doublet. This consists
of a principal lens and a somewhat weaker lens
of different refractive index cemented together .

The weaker lens must be of opposite power, and

because it too has spherical aberration, it will
reduce the power of the periphery of the principal
lens more than the central zone.

Usually, such doublets are designed to be both

aspheric and achromatic.
aspheric doublet
lens.
Ocular
application
 The effect of spherical aberration in the human eye is
reduced by several factors:

 (1) The anterior corneal surface is flatter peripherally

than at its centre, and therefore acts as an aplanatic
surface.
 (2) The nucleus of the lens of the eye has a higher
refractive index than the lens cortex… Thus the axial
zone of the lens has greater refractive power than the
periphery.
 (3) The iris acts as a stop to reduce spherical
aberration. The impairment of visual acuity that
occurs when the pupil is dilated is almost entirely due
to spherical aberration (Optimum pupil size is 2–2.5
mm.)
 (4) Retinal cones are much more sensitive to light
which enters the eye paraxially than to light
which enters obliquely through the peripheral
cornea (Stiles–Crawford effect).
This directional sensitivity of the cone
photoreceptors limits the visual effects of the
residual spherical aberration in the eye.
Oblique
astigmatism
Occurs when rays of light traverse a
spherical lens obliquely… a toric effect is
introduced
forming a Sturm’s conoid
Chromatic
aberration
Because the index of refraction of the ocular
components of the eye varies with wavelength,
colored objects located at the same distance
from the eye are imaged at different distances
with respect to the retina.

This phenomenon is called axial chromatic

aberration. In the human eye the magnitude of
chromatic aberration is approximately 3 D.
Chromatic
aberration
However, significant colored fringes around
objects generally are not seen because of the
preferential spectral sensitivity of human
photoreceptors.

Studies have shown that humans are many times

more sensitive to yellow–green light with a
central wavelength at 560 nm than to red or blue
light.
When white light is refracted at an optical
interface, it is dispersed into its component
wavelengths or colors .

The shorter the wavelength of the light, the more

it is deviated on refraction.

 Thus a series of colored images are formed

when white light is incident upon a spherical lens
Correction of Chromatic
Aberration
The dispersive power of a material is
independent of its refractive index.

Thus, there are materials of high dispersive

power but low refractive index, and vice versa.
Achromatic Lens

Special optics design of two mated lens –

concave and convex – which more precisely
focus the wavelengths of light onto the
same plane.

Achromatic lens systems are composed of

elements (lenses) of varying material
combined so that the dispersion is neutralized
while the overall refractive power is preserved
The earliest achromatic lenses were made
by combining elements of flint and crown
glass.