Illumination of an eye fundus using non-scanning coherent light
AssigneeVasoptic Medical Inc.
InventorAbhishek Rege
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Imaging various regions of the eye is important for both clinical diagnostic and treatment purposes as well as for scientific research. Diagnosis of a number of clinical conditions relies on imaging of the various tissues of the eye. The subject technology describes a method and apparatus for imaging the eye using off-center illumination in a manner that avoids light striking the anterior surfaces of the eye at or near a center of the optical axis, thereby reducing reflections traveling back along an imaging light path, while also providing substantially uniform illumination of a region of interest of the fundus.
Claims16
An ophthalmic imaging device, comprising:
- a first light source configured to emit coherent light;
- an axicon lens configured to receive the coherent light from the first light source;
- a first beam splitting element configured to receive the coherent light from the axicon lens from a first direction and transmit the coherent light in a second direction;
- an objective lens configured to receive the coherent light from the first beam splitting element, the axicon lens and the objective lens configured to transform the coherent light such that the coherent light focuses into an annular cross section at or near a cornea of an eye before defocusing into a substantially uniform cross section at or near a fundus of the eye;
- the objective lens further configured to receive scattered coherent light from the fundus;
- the first beam splitting element further configured to receive the scattered coherent light from the objective lens from the second direction and transmit it in a third direction;
- and
- an image sensor configured to receive scattered coherent light from the first beam splitting element.
A method comprising:
- generating a beam of coherent light;
- transforming the beam of coherent light using an axicon lens such that it focuses into a first substantially annular shape;
- transforming the beam of coherent light using an objective lens such that it focuses into a second substantially annular shape at or near a cornea of an eye before defocusing into a substantially uniform cross section at or near a fundus of the eye;
- receiving scattered coherent light from the fundus using the objective lens;
- and
- focusing the scattered coherent light from the objective lens onto an image sensor.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.