Transverse chromatic aberration across the visual field of the human eye

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to measure the transverse chromatic aberration (TCA) across the visual field of the human eye objectively. TCA wasmeasured at horizontal and vertical field angles out to ±15° from foveal fixation in the right eye of four subjects. Interleaved retinal images were taken at wavelengths 543 nm and 842 nm in an adaptive optics scanning laser ophthalmoscope (AOSLO). To obtain true measures of the human eye's TCA, the contributions of the AOSLO system's TCA were measured using an on-axis aligned model eye and subtracted from the ocular data. The increase in TCA was found to be linear with eccentricity, with an average slope of 0.21 arcmin/degree of visual field angle (corresponding to 0.41 arcmin/degree for 430 nm to 770 nm). The absolute magnitude of ocular TCA varied between subjects, but was similar to the resolution acuity at 10° in the nasal visual field, encompassing three to four cones. Therefore, TCA can be visually significant. Furthermore, for high-resolution imaging applications, whether visualizing or stimulating cellular features in the retina, it is important to consider the lateral displacements between wavelengths and the variation in blur over the visual field.