Design of an endomicroscope including a resonant fiber-based microprobe dedicated to endoscopic polarimetric imaging for medical diagnosis

Colman Buckley; Marc Fabert; Damien Kinet; Vytautas Kucikas; Dominique Pagnoux

doi:10.1364/BOE.403157

Design of an endomicroscope including a resonant fiber-based microprobe dedicated to endoscopic polarimetric imaging for medical diagnosis

Biomed Opt Express. 2020 Nov 10;11(12):7032-7052. doi: 10.1364/BOE.403157. eCollection 2020 Dec 1.

Authors

Colman Buckley¹, Marc Fabert¹, Damien Kinet², Vytautas Kucikas^{1

3}, Dominique Pagnoux¹

Affiliations

¹ University of Limoges, CNRS, Xlim, UMR 7252, F-87000 Limoges, France.
² University of Mons, Faculté Polytechnique, Bd Dolez 31, B-7000 Mons, Belgium.
³ RWTH Aachen University, Institute for Molecular Cardiovascular Research (IMCAR), Aachen, Germany.

Abstract

We report on a novel endomicroscope, to the best of our knowledge, designed for achieving full 4×4 Mueller polarimetric images of biological tissues through a fiber endoscope for medical diagnosis. The polarimetric technique is based on a previously published two-wavelength differential method (TWDM). A key component of the endomicroscope is a resonant fiber-based microprobe including a highly-selective fiber Bragg grating (FBG), free of detrimental polarimetric effects, photo written in the core of the fiber, near the output face. By means of the TWDM, and using the specially designed microprobe (diameter 2.9 mm, length 30 mm), full Mueller images of 250×250 pixels were produced at the rate of 1 image/2 s through a 2 m single mode fiber, paving the way to in vivo applications in polarimetric endomicroscopy.