Multiphoton imaging through the bone to image into the bone marrow or the brain is an emerging need in the scientific community. Due to the highly scattering nature of bone, bone thinning or removal is typically required to enhance the resolution and signal intensity at the imaging plane. The optical aberrations and scattering in the bone significantly affect the resolution and signal to noise ratio of deep tissue microscopy. Multiphoton microscopy uses long wavelength (nearinfrared and infrared) excitation light to reduce the effects of scattering. However, it is still susceptible to optical aberrations and scattering since the light propagates through several layers of media with inhomogeneous indices of refraction. Mechanical removal of bone is highly invasive, laborious, and cannot be applied in experiments where imaging inside of the bone is desired. Adaptive optics technology can compensate for these optical aberrations and potentially restore the diffraction limited point spread function of the system even in deep tissue. To design an adaptive optics system, a priori knowledge of the sample structure assists selection of the proper correction element and sensing methods. In this work we present the characterization of optical aberrations caused by mouse cranial bone, using second harmonic generation imaging of bone collagen. We simulate light propagation through the bone, calculate aberrations and determine the correction that can be achieved using a deformable mirror.
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