Aberrations of the Optical System

including the Eye

By: Fajri mohammed (MD )

ophthalmology R. (R1 )
JUDO January , 2022

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 out line
• Introduction
• Monochromatic aberration
Spherical aberrations
Oblique Astigmatism
Coma
 Distortion
Curvature of Field
• Chromatic Aberrations
• Summary

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 Introduction
• Aberrations defined as the d/c 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.
• Its deviations from stigmatic imaging.
• It is an imperfection of image formation which leads to blurring and distortion of the
image formed by an optical system.

• Divided into;
• Monochromatic
• Chromatic aberration

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 Monochromatic aberrations
• Are independent of chromaticity of the light & Caused by
the geometry of the lens

Spherical aberration

Marginal Astigmatism

Coma

Curvature of Field

Distortion

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Cont.…

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 cont.…
Spherical Aberration
• By high powered optical system

• Rays passing through the periphery of

the lens are deviated more than those
passing through the paraxial zone

• The further away a ray is from the axis,

the more closer its focus to the lens
will be.

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 Cont.…

• Marginal focus: point where peripheral rays converge

• Paraxial focus: point where central rays focus
• Circle of least confusion: ¼ of distance b/n marginal & paraxial focus/ at
diopterical center of focused image of two meridian.

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 Cont…
• Spherical aberration has 2 effects:
Image quality (VA) decreases --- the focus is not stigmatic
Image location is changed from predicted position

• The best focus is at where the rays are confined to the smallest area

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 Cont.…
• In the human eye, spherical aberration shifts the focus anteriorly
• Making the patient slightly more myopic than would be expected from vergence
calculations
• Increase with power of lens and width of beam

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 Correction of Spherical Aberration

• Use of diaphragm
Occluding the periphery of the lens using ‘stops’
• Adjusting lens form
 Plano-convex is better than biconvex

• Making the peripheral curvature less than the central

curvature(aplanatic (aspheric) surfaces

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 cont.…

• Use of doublet
Principal lens plus a somewhat weaker lens of different refractive index
cemented together
The weaker lens must be of opposite power
This reduce the spherical aberration (aspheric) and possibly the chromatic
aberration (achromatic)

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 Ocular Spherical Aberration

• Spherical aberration accounts for some cases of fluctuating vision following

keratorefractive surgery
• Radial keratotomy makes the cornea more spherical increasing spherical
aberration.

• Laser in situ keratomileusis (LASIK) and photorefractive keratectomy (PRK)

can make the central cornea flatter than the peripheral cornea

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 cont.…

 Night myopia
• Spherical aberration exacerbates myopia in low light due to:
Pupil dilation with decreased light
Focus shifts anteriorly
The amount of myopic shift is about 0.50 D
• The effect of spherical aberration increases as the fourth power of the pupil
diameter
• Small change in pupil size can cause a significant change in refraction

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 cont.…

Effect of spherical aberration in the human eye is reduced by:

• Anterior corneal surface is flatter peripherally than at its center so it acts as an
aplanatic surface
• The nucleus of the lens has a higher refractive index than the cortex.
Thus the axial zone of the lens has greater refractive power than the
periphery .

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 Cont…
• The iris acts as a stop to reduce spherical aberration.
 Impairment of VA when the pupil is dilated is almost entirely due to spherical
aberration.
 Optimum pupil size is 2–2.5 mm.
• Retinal cones are much more sensitive to light entering the eye par axially than
obliquely through the peripheral cornea (Stiles–Crawford effect).

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 Oblique Astigmatism
• Occurs when rays of light traverse a spherical
lens obliquely.
• This introduces a toric effect and emerging rays
will forms a Sturm's conoid with two line foci.

• Occurs in spectacle lenses when the line of sight

is not parallel with the principal axis of the lens.
• Is un avoidable in the case of the near portion of
a multifocal lens
Oblique astigmatism. FH and FV represent
the horizontal and vertical line foci of a
Sturm's conoid

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 Cont.…

• It reduce VA in patients with restricted eye movement, who

 adopt a compensatory head posture and
 look obliquely through peripheral portions of their spectacle lenses.

• The higher the spectacle lens power, the greater the unwanted cylindrical power
induced by the aberration

• It is considerably affected by the form of the lens used

Much worse in biconcave & biconvex lenses than in meniscus lenses

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 How to overcome oblique astigmatism

• Using Best form lenses

Are optimum form of single lenses for reducing both spherical and
oblique aberrations which is usually in meniscus form.
• Pantoscopic tilt
 Results when the frame is rotated with respect to the face’s
vertical frontal plane.
Is the tilt of lower border of spectacle lenses towards cheek
 The axis of the induced cylinder is 180 degrees.
It reduces the obliquity of the reading portion of multifocal
lenses

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 Cont.…

• Pantoscopic tilt bring near zone closer to the eye --- increase field of view through
near zone of lens
• It may cause intolerance in high power spectacle wearers if new frame having
different angle of tilt are dispensed

• pantoscopic tilt increases a minus lens’s minus power.

Induced cylinder (axis 180) = F (tan2θ)

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Eg .What is the effective power of a -8.00 DS polycarbonate lens that is
mounted in a frame that has a pantoscopic tilt of 15 degrees?

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 Ocular Oblique Astigmatism

• Occurs in the human eye but its visual effect is minimal.

• The factors which reduce ocular oblique astigmatism are:
 The aplanatic curvature of the cornea reduces oblique astigmatism as well as
spherical aberration.

 The astigmatic image falls on peripheral retina which has relatively poor resolving
power compared with the retina at the macula so Visual appreciation of the
astigmatic image is therefore limited.

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 Cont.…

• The retina is not a plane surface, but a spherical surface.

The radius of curvature of the retina in emmetropic eye means that the circle of least
confusion of the Sturm's conoid formed by oblique astigmatism falls on the retina

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 Coma
• Coma is a disparity in focal length for rays from a single off-axis object point that are
refracted at different distances from the center of the lens.
• Occurs in large aperture optical system
• Oblique Rays passing through the periphery are deviated more than the central rays ---
that come to a focus nearer the principal axis
• Results in unequal magnification of the image formed by different zones of the lens
• The composite image is elongated like a coma or comet

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 Cont.….
Correction of Coma Aberration
• Ways of correction:
Limiting rays to the axial areas of lens
Using principal axis of the lens rather than a
subsidiary axis

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 Distortion
• It is a disparity in transverse magnification for objects at different distances from the
optic axis.

• Is inability of lens to form image of the same shape as an object

is due to increased prismatic effect at the periphery of the lens --- uneven
magnification of the object

• Image is in focus clearly; only shape is distorted

• Create inconvenience in users of high-power spectacle lenses (aphakic)
• Can be reduced with aspheric lenses

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 Types of distortion
• Barrel distortion
 Occurs in minus lenses
 Rays in the centre are more
magnified than the further
• Pin-cushion’ distortion
 Produced in plus lenses
 Rays in the centre are less magnified ---
magnification of corners

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 Curvature of Field

• Also called petzval surface

• Indicates a plane object gives rise to a curved
image
• Affects image position
• Occurs even with eliminated spherical aberration,
oblique astigmatism & coma .
• This effect is dependent upon:
The refractive index of the lens material
The curvature of the lens surfaces

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 Cont…

• In the eye the curvature of the retina compensates for aberration of curvature of
field.

• ”Since off-axis rays that pass through the center of a lens can cause curvature of field,
this aberration is clinically important in the design of spectacle lenses.

• It can be minimized by the proper selection of the lens front surface power.

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 Measurement of the Eye’s Monochromatic Aberrations

• The eye’s monochromatic aberrations can be measured using devices called

aberrometers.
• Perhaps most widely discussed is the Hartmann-Shack aberrometer,
• An advantage of this procedure is it allows the quantification of aberrations in non
spherical optical systems (such as the eye).

• To measure aberrations in any optical system, we compare the OPL of a light ray
passing through any point (x,y) present at the plane of the pupil with the chief ray
passing though the center of the pupil (0,0).

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 Cont..
• The manner in which the pattern deviates
from a regular grid reveals the nature of
the eye’s aberrations and is quantified as
Zernike polynomials (i.e., second order,
third order, etc.).

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 Chromatic Aberration
• When white light is refracted at an optical interface, it dispersed
• The shorter the light wavelength, the more deviated on refraction
• Thus a series of coloured images are formed when white light is incident upon a
spherical lens
• This separation of white light into its component elements by a prism (or other optical element) is
referred to as chromatic dispersion.

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 Cont…
• Dispersive power of a material is independent of its refractive index
• Dependent on optical properties of material, not on optical shape

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 Cont…
Dispersive Power and Constringence

• Lens manufacturers use the Abbe number to specify the chromatic aberration of their
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products
 Cont…
• Two types of Chromatic Aberration
Lateral (Transverse) Chromatic Aberration
 Longitudinal Chromatic Aberration

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 Lateral (Transverse) Chromatic Aberration

• We can define it as the difference in prismatic power for wavelengths of 486 and 656
nm
• The chromatic aberration produced by a prism

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 Cont.…
• Do lenses manifest lateral chromatic aberration?
• Lateral chromatic aberration is an important consideration when prescribing lens
materials with low Abbe numbers, such as polycarbonate.
• As the patient looks through more peripheral regions of the lens, the prismatic
power increases, resulting in greater lateral chromatic aberration.

• This may be seen by the patient as colored fringes.

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 Longitudinal Chromatic Aberration

• The lens’s longitudinal chromatic aberration is defined as The difference in dioptric

power for wavelengths of 486 and 656 nm. Stated as an equation,

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 Ocular Chromatic Aberration

• Refraction by human eye is also subjected to chromatic aberration

• Chromatic aberration of the eye focuses blue light in front of red light
• The total dispersion from red to blue image is about 0.5- 2.00D.
• The emmetropic eye focuses for the yellow–green (555 nm)

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 Duochrome test

• Also called red-green test or bichrome test

• The test consists of two ranks of black Snellen letters
• With illumination, the patient can easily tell which side appear clearer
Myopic eye sees the red letters more clearly while
Hypermetropic eye sees green letters more distinctly

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 Cont.…

• The test is sensitive to an alteration in refraction of 0.25 D or less

If the letters of the green side are clearer +0.25 D sphere is added
If the letters on the red side are clearer -0.25 D sphere is added

• When the image is clearly focused in white light, the eye is

 0.25 D myopic for the green symbols
 0.25 D hyperopic for the red symbols

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 Cont.…

• With optimal correction, the letters on the either sides will be equally clear.
• The test is used to verify the spherical endpoint

• Particularly useful in the refraction of myopic patients, who experience eye strain
if they are overcorrected.

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 Cont…

• Colour blindness does not invalidate the test because:

It depends on the position of the image with respect to the retina
Is based on chromatic aberration, not on colour discrimination
Pt should be asked whether the upper or lower rank of letters clearer.

• The test is not used for patients with VA < 6/9

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 Correction of Chromatic Aberration

Achromatic Lens Systems

• Composed of lens elements of varying material combined
• Neutralize dispersion, but preserving the overall refractive power

e.g
• Convex lens of high refractive power and low dispersive power
PLUS
• Concave lens of low refractive power but higher dispersive power

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 Cont…
• The earliest achromatic lenses are made by combining elements of flint and
crown glass

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 cont…

Filtering glasses

• Blue-blocking, red-blocking, and other coloured sunglasses

• Improve visual acuity by decreasing chromatic aberration

• They do so at the cost of reducing the colour content of the image

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 summary
• Aberrations are deviations from stigmatic imaging.
• Its a cause of imperfections of image formation by the optical system.
• Divided into;
• Chromatic aberration
Longitudinal and transvers
• Monochromatic
Spherical aberration is a disparity in focal length for rays from a single axial
object point that are refracted at different distances from the center of the
lens
Coma is a disparity in focal length for rays from a single off-axis object point
that are refracted at different distances from the center of the lens.

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 summary…

Astigmatism is the disparity in focal length for rays from a single object point that
are incident at different meridians of the lens
Curvature of field is a disparity in focal length for objects at different distances
from the optic axis.
Distortion is a disparity in transverse magnification for objects at different
distances from the optic axis.

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 References
• Geometrical and visual optics 3rd edition
• Clinical optics 3rd edition; Andrew R. Elkington
• BCSC 2020-2021, section 3 optics

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Thank you
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