Patent ID: 6964480

Claim:
An ophthalmic instrument for estimating aberrations in the eyes of a patient and providing said patient with a view of optical correction of said aberrations so as to provide instant feedback as to the accuracy of the estimated aberrations, said ophthalmic instrument comprising: an adaptive optics subsystem including a wavefront sensor and a multi-stage phase compensator; said wavefront sensor estimating aberrations in reflections of light formed as an image on the retina of an eye of said patient; and said multi-stage phase compensator, operably coupled to said wavefront sensor, and spatially modulating the phase of incident light to compensate for said aberrations estimated by said wavefront sensor, wherein said multi-stage phase compensator comprises a first stage and at least one other additional stage, wherein said first stage compensates for a defocus component of said aberrations, and wherein said at least one other additional stage compensates for other higher order components of said aberrations; and a fixation target, operably coupled to said adaptive optics subsystem, to provide the patient with a view of correction of said estimated aberrations so that the patient can provide instant feedback as to the accuracy of the estimated aberrations.