Characterization of shift-variant pupil aberrations for wide field-of-view microscopy

Abstract: We describe a simple and robust approach for characterizing the shift-variant pupil aberrations of wide field-of-view microscopy systems. We derive the location-dependent pupil transfer functions by first capturing multiple intensity images at different defocus settings; a generalized pattern search (GPS) algorithm is then applied to recover the complex pupil functions at ~350 different spatial locations over the entire field-of-view. Parameter fitting transforms these pupil functions into accurate 2D aberration maps. We demonstrate shift-variant aberration compensation by using an information-preserving image deconvolution scheme over the entire field-of-view. Such automated shift-variant pupil characterization will facilitate new approaches of aberration correction for future gigapixel imaging platforms.