We demonstrate a flexible stand-alone, minimally invasive video-endomicroscope with an outer diameter of 1.6 mm and a length of the rigid tip of 6.7 mm that enables surgeons and biologists to image hardly accessible regions in-vivo in epifluorescence mode. The 60 mg light device improves state-of-the-art objectives by a double deflection approach using a side-fire fiber in combination with spherical microlenses, GRIN-lenses with a specific adapted gradient index profile and an extremely miniaturized chip-on-the-tip camera to achieve an excellent imaging quality. A high NA of 0.7 enables the observation of subcellular features within the entire field of view with a diameter of 183 μm, assure a bright and high-contrast image and promise a good overview during the intervention. Ex-vivo measurements of biological samples confirmed the functionality of the probe.

Date Published: 15 February 2017
PDF: 5 pages
Proc. SPIE 10040, Endoscopic Microscopy XII, 1004007 (15 February 2017); doi: 10.1117/12.2251827

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 10040:
Endoscopic Microscopy XII
Guillermo J. Tearney M.D.; Thomas D. Wang, Editor(s)