Optical metrology for immersed diffractive multifocal ophthalmic intracorneal lenses

Abstract

This paper deals with the optical characterization of diffractive multifocal Intra-Corneal Lenses (ICLs) that we have developed in order to correct presbyopia. These diffractive multifocal lenses are made of a very soft material (permeable to oxygen and nutrients), with a thickness smaller than 100 µm and require liquid immersion. As a consequence, most of the conventional metrology methods are unsuited for their characterization. We developed specific setups to measure diffractive efficiencies and Modulation Transfer Function (MTF) adapted to such components. Experimental results are in good agreement with Zemax® simulations. For the best of our knowledge, it is the first time that optical characterization is devoted to the ICLs. Furthermore, most of the IOL’s optical characterizations are focused on far vision MTF and don’t assess the near vision MTF, which we study in this paper.

Keywords

• diffractive lenses
• optical design and fabrication
• modulation transfer function
• metrology
• ophthalmology