Optical quality assessment of whole slide imaging systems for digital pathology

Whole Slide Imaging (WSI) systems are high-throughput automated microscopes for digital pathology applications. We present a method for testing and monitoring the optical quality of WSI-systems using a measurement of the through-focus Optical Transfer Function (OTF) obtained from the edge response of a custom made resolution target, composed of sagittal and tangential edges. This enables quantitative analysis of a number of primary aberrations. The curvature of the best focus as a function of spatial frequency is indicative for spherical aberration, the argument of the OTF quantifies for coma, and the best focus as a function of field position for sagittal and tangential edges allows assessment of astigmatism and field curvature. The statistical error in the determined aberrations is typically below 20 mλ. We use the method to compare different tube lens designs and to study the effect of objective lens aging. The results are in good agreement with direct measurement of aberrations based on Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensing with a typical error ranging from 10 mλ to 40 mλ.