Observing distant objects with a multimode fibre-based holographic endoscope

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel multimode fibre-based holographic endoscope capable of imaging macroscopic objects at various depths, combining high image quality with minimal invasiveness for potential biomedical and diagnostic applications.

Contribution

The authors develop a 'farfield' holographic endoscope using two parallel fibres optimized for speed, efficiency, and quality, enabling imaging at larger distances than traditional nearfield fibre endoscopes.

Findings

Effective imaging at 20-400 mm distances demonstrated.

Successful imaging inside a pepper cavity as a phantom.

Performance comparable to standard video endoscopes.

Abstract

Holographic wavefront manipulation enables converting hair-thin multimode optical fibres into minimally invasive lensless imaging instruments conveying much higher information densities than conventional endoscopes. Their most prominent applications focus on accessing delicate environments, including deep brain compartments, and recording micrometre-scale resolution images of structures in close proximity to the distal end of the instrument. Here, we introduce an alternative 'farfield' endoscope, capable of imaging macroscopic objects across a large depth of field. The endoscope shaft with dimensions of 0.2$\times$0.4 mm$^2$ consists of two parallel optical fibres, one for illumination and the second for signal collection. The system is optimized for speed, power efficiency and signal quality, taking into account specific features of light transport through step-index multimode fibres. The characteristics of imaging quality are studied at distances between 20 and 400 mm. As a proof-of-concept, we provide imaging inside the cavities of a sweet pepper commonly used as a phantom for biomedically relevant conditions. Further, we test the performance on a functioning mechanical clock, thus verifying its applicability in dynamically changing environments. With performance reaching the standard definition of video endoscopes, this work paves the way towards the exploitation of minimally-invasive holographic micro-endoscopes in clinical and diagnostics applications.