Curled optical patch cord for bending insensitive biomedical imaging endoscope

Abstract

Biomedical optical imaging technologies based on optical fibers have been of great interest because of their superiority over conventional bulk-optic counter part in size and integration. Flexible endoscope is a key component to deliver the reflected optical signal from biological tissue to the optical imaging system, such as Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) and Fiber Confocal Microscopy (FCM). However, conventional optical fibers for the biomedical imaging endoscope have been suffered from a critical wiring problem of a fiber waveguide, which induces additional loss severely. In this work, we have shown excellent properties of holey optical fibers with low bending loss under a minimum bending radius of 10 mm or less, which is almost reaching the wiring limit of endoscope. A curled optical patch cord, like a curled telephone cord, is practically demonstrated for the convenient access of imaging probe to the biological target at the flexible distance. The quality improvement of optical imaging is compared to show the great potential for the endoscopic OCT and endoscopic FCM.