Miniaturised adaptive optical microscope using compact liquid crystal corrector

Direct Laser Writing in Liquid Crystal (LC) enables a new generation of wavefront shaping devices. By forming polymer structures directly in LC, these devices generate tunable wavefronts using a single electrode pair. The small scale, simplified control, and versatility allows us to bring adaptive optics (AO) to applications previously restricted by device size or complexity. We present a miniaturized AO-enabled microscope with potential for in-vivo mouse brain imaging. By adding a laser-written LC device to our microscope, we can perform full tunable correction of spherical aberration, without the addition of bulky optics or complicated electronics.