Wide-field cellular-resolution retinal imaging using deformable mirror-based sensorless adaptive optics time-domain full-field OCT

Adaptive optics (AO) enables cellular-resolution retinal imaging by correcting ocular aberrations, but its widespread clinical adoption remains limited by the narrow field of view (FOV) imposed by the isoplanatic patch of the eye. In this study, we present a deformable mirror (DM)-based sensorless AO time-domain full-field OCT (FFOCT) system that overcomes these limitations by leveraging the inherent robustness of FFOCT to ocular aberrations under spatially incoherent illumination. Using both phantom eye simulations and in vivo experiments, we demonstrate that correction of only three to five Zernike modes (defocus, astigmatism, and coma) is sufficient to significantly enhance SNR and resolve fine retinal structures. This includes reliable visualization of cone photoreceptors as close as 0.3^∘ from the foveal center and depth-resolved imaging of inner retinal features such as nerve fiber bundles, vessel walls, capillaries, internal limiting membrane, macrophage-like cells, and Gunn's dots, across a <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><mml:msup><mml:mn>5</mml:mn> <mml:mo>∘</mml:mo></mml:msup> <mml:mo>×</mml:mo> <mml:msup><mml:mn>5</mml:mn> <mml:mo>∘</mml:mo></mml:msup> </mml:math> FOV at 500 Hz. By simplifying AO implementation while achieving wide-field cellular resolution, this approach addresses key limitations of current AO ophthalmoscopes and offers a promising pathway toward a wider clinical deployment of high-resolution retinal imaging.