Effects of Different Zernike Terms on Optical Quality and Vision of Human Eyes

The visual quality of human eyes is much restricted by high-order aberrations as well as low-order aberrations (defocus and astigmatism), but each term of high-order aberrations contributes differently. The visual acuity and contrast of the image on the retina can be gained by inducing aberrations to each term of high orders. Based on an adaptive optics system, the visual acuity of four subjects is tested by inducing aberrations to each Zernike term after correcting all the aberrations of the subjects. Zernike terms near the center of the Zernike tree affect visual quality more than those near the edge both theoretically and experimentally, and 0.1-μm aberration of these terms can clearly degrade the optical quality and vision. The results suggest that correcting the terms near the center of Zernike tree can improve the visual quality effectively in practice.