Diffuser-based fiber endoscopy for single-shot 3D fluorescence imaging

Abstract

Minimally invasive endoscopy using coherent fiber bundles shows great potential for numerous applications in biomedical imaging. With a diffuser on the distal side of the fiber bundle and computational image recovery, single-shot 3D imaging is possible by encoding the image volume into 2D speckle patterns. In comparison to equivalent lens systems, a higher space-bandwidth product can be achieved. However, decoding the image with iterative algorithms is time-consuming. Thus, we propose utilizing a neural network for fast 2D and 3D image reconstruction at video rate. In this work, single-shot 3D fluorescence imaging with an ultra-thin endoscope is demonstrated, enabling applications like calcium imaging for in vivo brain diagnostics at cellular resolution.