Optical material and method for modifying the refractive index
View Patent ↗A method for modifying the refractive index of an optical, polymeric material. The method comprises irradiating select regions of the optical, polymeric material with a focused, visible or near-IR laser having a pulse energy from 0.05 nJ to 1000 nJ. The irradiation results in the formation of refractive optical structures, characterized by a change in refractive index, exhibit little or no scattering loss, and exhibit no significant differences in the Raman spectrum with respect to the non-irradiated optical, polymeric material. The method can be used to modify the refractive index of an intraocular lens following the surgical implantation of the intraocular lens in a human eye. The invention is also directed to an optical device comprising refractive optical structures, wherein the refractive structures are characterized by a change in refractive index, exhibit little or no scattering loss, and exhibit no significant differences in the Raman spectrum with respect to the non-irradiated optical, polymeric material.
1. A method for modifying the refractive index of an intraocular lens following the surgical insertion of the intraocular lens in a human eye, the method comprising:
identifying and measuring aberrations caused by the intraocular lens resulting from the surgical procedure, the intraocular lens including an optical, polymeric material;
determining the position and shape of structures to be patterned into the optical, polymeric material of the lens to correct for the aberrations; and
irradiating select regions of the optical, polymeric material with a focused, visible or near-IR laser having a pulse energy from 0.05 nJ to 1000 nJ, wherein the irradiated regions are characterized by a change in refractive index, exhibit little or no scattering loss, and exhibit no significant differences in a Raman spectrum with respect to a Raman spectrum of non-irradiated optical, polymeric material.
2. The method of claim 1 further comprising verifying the vision correction provided by the irradiated regions.
3. The method of claim 1 wherein the focused laser is provided by a compensation scheme of at least two prisms and at least one mirror to compensate for the positive dispersion introduced by a focus objective.
4. The method of claim 1 wherein the optical polymeric material is prepared from one or more (meth)acrylate monomers selected from the group consisting of 2-hydroxymethyl (meth)acrylate, 2-phenylethyl (meth)acrylate, methyl(meth)acrylate and 3-phenylpropyl (meth)acrylate.
5. The method of claim 1 wherein the region of the optical material irradiated by the laser exhibits a positive change in refractive index.
6. The method of claim 5 wherein the positive change in refractive index is from 0.02 to 0.06.
7. The method of claim 1 wherein the pulse energy of the laser is from 0.2 nJ to 100 nJ.
8. The method of claim 1 wherein the pulse energy of the laser is from 0.5 nJ to 10 nJ.
9. The method of claim 7 wherein the visible or near-IR laser generates pulses having a pulse width of 4 fs to 100 fs.
10. The method of claim 7 wherein the optical, polymeric material is a hydrogel.
11. The method of claim 7 wherein the optical polymeric material is prepared from one or more hydrophilic monomeric components, where a homopolymer of said hydrophilic monomeric components would contain at least 20% of water, based on the weight of the homopolymer.
12. The method of claim 1 wherein the focused laser is provided by a compensation scheme of at least two diffractive gratings to compensate for the positive dispersion introduced by a focus objective.
13. The method of claim 1 wherein the focused laser is provided by a compensation scheme of a chirped mirror to compensate for the positive dispersion introduced by a focus objective.
14. The method of claim 1 wherein the focused laser is provided by a compensation scheme of dispersion compensating mirrors to compensate for the positive dispersion introduced by a focus objective.