Abstract
An ultrasmall spot size scanning laser ophthalmoscope has been developed that employs an annular aberration-corrected incident beam to increase the effective numerical aperture of the eye thereby reducing the width of the probing light spot. Parafovea and foveal cone photoreceptor visibility determined from small area retinal image scans are discussed from the perspective of mode matching between the focused incident beam and the waveguide modes of individual cones. The cone visibility near the fovea centralis can be increased with the annular illumination scheme whereas the visibility of larger parafovea cones drops significantly as a consequence of poorer mode match. With further improvements of the implemented wavefront correction technology it holds promise for individual cone-photoreceptor imaging at the fovea centralis and for optical targeting of the retina with increased resolution.