Illumination of an eye fundus using non-scanning coherent light
AssigneeVasoptic Medical Inc.
InventorAbhishek Rege
Life of this patent
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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.
Claims17
An ophthalmic imaging device, comprising:
- a first light source configured to emit at least two beams of coherent light;
- first and second cylindrical lenses configured to receive the two beams of coherent light, respectively, from the first light source;
- a first beam splitting element configured to receive the two beams of coherent light from the first and second cylindrical lenses from a first direction and transmit the two beams of coherent light in a second direction;
- an objective lens configured to receive the two beams of coherent light from the first beam splitting element, the first and second cylindrical lenses and the objective lens configured to transform the two beams of coherent light such that the coherent light focuses into two rectangular shapes 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 first beam of coherent light and a second beam of coherent light;
- transforming the first beam of coherent light using a first cylindrical lens such that it focuses into a first substantially rectangular shape;
- transforming the second beam of coherent light using a second cylindrical lens such that it focuses into a second substantially rectangular shape;
- transforming the first beam of coherent light using an objective lens such that it focuses into a third substantially rectangular shape at or near a cornea of an eye;
- transforming the second beam of coherent light using the objective lens such that it focuses into a fourth substantially rectangular shape at or near a cornea of an eye, the first and second beams of coherent light 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.