One Image, All Aberrations: A Universal Framework for Wavefront Correction

One Image, All Aberrations: A Universal Framework for Wavefront Correction | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Article One Image, All Aberrations: A Universal Framework for Wavefront Correction Abdoulaye Ndao, Sina Moayed Baharlou, Muhammad Khalid, Guli Gulinihali, and 6 more This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-7730754/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Under Review Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract Optical aberrations have been explored for decades owing to their important role in many applications, ranging from microscopy, astronomy, and quantum imaging, but also critical to the performance of technologies woven into daily life, from smartphone cameras and eyeglass lenses to autonomous vehicles and optical networks. Despite sustained advances in wavefront shaping, optical aberrations continue to impose fundamental limits on imaging performance, with all existing correction strategies constrained by inherent trade-offs in accuracy, speed, generality, and physical scalability. Complicated platforms are often required to detect and correct optical aberrations, making the system bulky, restricted to narrowband operation, challenging to fabricate, and of limited compatibility with broadband, non-paraxial, or structured fields. Here, we report a unified, single-shot wavefront correction framework that departs fundamentally from conventional approaches. Leveraging a hybrid deep learning architecture, our method directly retrieves all phase distortions from a single focal-plane intensity image, thus circumventing the need for defocused inputs and iterative procedures. The framework is intrinsically broadband, adaptable, and achieves diffraction-limited performance across a wide range of structured light fields, including orbital angular momentum (OAM), Hermite-Gaussian (HG), and Laguerre-Gaussian (LG) modes. This approach not only collapses the wavefront sensing pipeline into a single computational step but also establishes a scalable foundation for real-time aberration correction in next-generation optical systems. Physical sciences/Optics and photonics/Optical physics/Sub-wavelength optics Physical sciences/Optics and photonics/Optical physics/Nanophotonics and plasmonics Full Text Additional Declarations There is NO Competing Interest. Supplementary Files Supplementary.pdf One Image, All Aberrations: A Universal Framework for Wavefront Correction Cite Share Download PDF Status: Under Review Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. Our growing team is made up of researchers and industry professionals working together to solve the most critical problems facing scientific publishing. Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-7730754","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":527690659,"identity":"fa384178-38ad-436b-bdbc-325fd3d48290","order_by":0,"name":"Abdoulaye 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