Open AccessUltra-thin and flexible endoscopy probe for optical coherence tomography based on stepwise transitional core fiber
Author(s) -
Jangbeom Lee,
Yu-Gyeong Chae,
YehChan Ahn,
Seong Mi Moon
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
biomedical optics express
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.362
H-Index - 86
ISSN - 2156-7085
DOI - 10.1364/boe.6.001782
Subject(s) - optical coherence tomography , optics , optical fiber , materials science , fabrication , core (optical fiber) , single mode optical fiber , multi mode optical fiber , mode field diameter , fiber , lens (geology) , optoelectronics , physics , plastic optical fiber , medicine , alternative medicine , pathology , composite material
We present an ultra-thin fiber-body endoscopy probe for optical coherence tomography (OCT) which is based on a stepwise transitional core (STC) fiber. In a minimalistic design, our probe was made of spliced specialty fibers that could be directly used for beam probing optics without using a lens. In our probe, the OCT light delivered through a single-mode fiber was efficiently expanded to a large mode field of 24 μm diameter for a low beam divergence. The size of our probe was 85 μm in the probe's diameter while operated in a 160-μm thick protective tubing. Through theoretical and experimental analyses, our probe was found to exhibit various attractive features in terms of compactness, flexibility and reliability along with its excellent fabrication simplicity.