Design and fabrication of a microstructured bifocal intraocular lens

Intraocular lenses IOLs allow the vision restoration of cataract patients. However the ability of accommodation is lost after cataract surgery. Multifocal lenses show two or more foci with different refractive powers. Far and near objects can be at focus simultaneously. No additional spectacles are necessary. Bifocal lenses can be fabricated as multizone or as diffractive lenses. Diffractive multifocal lenses show in contrast to multi zone multifocal lenses no change of the brightness ratio for the far and near focus with change of the pupil diameter. Diffractive lenses show a saw tooth like microscopic shape with a geometrical height of the teeth in the order of microns. The lens was fabricated with a mold technique in a flexible silicone material. The molds have been lathed in metal with a ultra precision diamond lathe machine. For the test of the optical performance a MTF-measurement machine was constructed for multifocal lenses. With this machine the imaging quality and the intensity ratio of the two foci were measured. The optical quality of the lens turned out to be diffraction limited. At the University Hospital of Giessen, Germany a first clinical evaluation with 23 patients has been performed and proved for the high quality of the manufactured IOLs.