Coherent fiber bundle (CFB)-based endoscopes enable optical keyhole access in applications such as biophotonics. In conjunction with objective lenses, CFBs allow imaging of intensity patterns. In contrast, digital optical phase conjugation enables lensless holographic endoscopes for the generation of pixelation-free arbitrary light patterns. For real-world applications, however, this requires a non-invasive in situ calibration of the complex optical transfer function of the CFB with only single-sided access. We show that after an initial calibration in a forward direction, a differential phase measurement of the back-reflected light allows for tracking and compensating of bending-induced phase distortions. Furthermore, we present a novel in situ calibration procedure based on a programmable guide star, which requires access to only one side of the fiber.

Lensless fiber endoscopes are of great importance for keyhole imaging. Coherent fiber bundles (CFB) can be used in endoscopes as remote phased arrays to capture images. One challenge is to image at high speed while correcting aberrations induced by the CFB. We propose the combination of digital optical phase conjugation, using a spatial light modulator, with fast scanning, for which a 2D galvo scanner and an adaptive lens are employed. We achieve the transmission of laser and image scanning through the CFB. Video-rate imaging at 20 Hz in 2D with subcellular resolution is demonstrated in 3D with 1 Hz. The sub-millimeter-diameter scanning endoscope has a great potential in biomedicine, for manipulation, e.g.,  in optogenetics, as well as in imaging.

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Endoscopes enable optical keyhole access in many applications for instance in biomedicine. In general, coherent fiber bundles (CFB) are used in conjunction with rigid lens systems which determine a fixed image plane. However, the lens system limits the minimum diameter of the endoscope typically to several millimeters. Additionally, only pixelated two-dimensional amplitude patterns can be transferred due to phase scrambling between adjacent cores. These limitations can be overcome by digital optical elements. Thus, in principle thinner, lensless, holographic endoscopes with a three-dimensional adjustable focus for imaging and illumination can be realized. So far, several techniques based on single mode CFB and multi mode fibers (MMF) have been presented. However, these techniques require access to both sides of the fiber, in order to calibrate the bending and temperature sensitive phase distortion, which is not possible in a real application. We present the feasibility of an in-situ calibration and compensation of a CFB with single sided access. A lensless endoscope with a diameter of only 500 µm, a spatial resolution around 1 µm and video rate capability is realized.

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