Fast algorithm for blind optimisation of optical systems; statistics and methodology

Adaptive Optics (AO) improves the efficiency of the optical devices in confocal imaging systems by reducing wavefront aberrations. Aberration is caused by imperfections within the system and reduces the optical signal to noise ratio of the resultant images besides deteriorating the quality of the images. An AO system, comprises a wavefront sensor and a deformable mirror (DM), is a straightforward solution to compensate for this distortion. In confocal microscopy, the wavefront sensor can be supplanted with an optimisation algorithm. We have previously implemented the general simulated annealing (SA) algorithm for optimising confocal microscopes. In this paper the modified version of the SA algorithm, fast simulated annealing (FSA) is investigated which takes less than one hundredth of the optimisation time required by the general version.