Retinal image quality for multifocal lenses with on- and off-axis annular zones

Multi-focal intra-ocular or contact lenses, intended to increase depth of focus, conventionally have annular zones of additional refractive power, generating wavefront rings of coaxial spherical surfaces. It is, however, possible to influence depth of focus by changing not only the curvature of the wavefront, i.e., refractive power, in the annulus, but also the tilt, i.e., circularly symmetrical linear radial deviation imposed on the spherical wavefront. Employing the example of a single annulus bifocal, retinal image light distributions in the two regimes are calculated, using standard diffraction theory. Four measures of retinal image quality in through-focus scans show that plus power additions and wavefront tilts operate almost interchangeably. In testing these lenses, attention needs to be paid to the detailed operating characteristics of measuring devices of the Shack-Hartmann type to ensure that their grain and precision is compatible with the framework of the analysis.