Fiber-optic imaging probe for endoscopic optical coherence tomography

We present a fully fiber-optic endoscopic imaging probe for optical coherence tomography (OCT). By utilizing a large-core fiber and stepwise transitional core (STC) structure simply implemented by splicing a series of optical fibers, ultra-compact imaging probe was developed for practical OCT endoscopy. Through theoretical and experimental verifications, it was found that our fiber-based probe has attractive features in minimally invasive imaging for its compactness, robustness and cost-effectiveness.