Scanned optical fiber confocal microscope

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Abstract
The size and weight of conventional optical microscopes often makes them inconvenient for use on the human body or for in-situ examination during materials processing. We describe a new fiber-optic scanning confocal optical microscope which could have a total outside diameter as small as 1 mm, and should lend itself to applications in endoscopy or to optical in vivo histology. The first experimental device utilizes a single-mode optical fiber for illumination and detection. The scanning element is a mechanically resonant fused silica cantilever 1.5 cm long and 0.8 mm across, with a micromachined two-phase zone plate objective mounted at one end. The cantilever is electrostatically scanned near resonance in two dimensions, generating a Lissajous pattern which is scan converted to conventional video for real time display or digitization. The objective lens has N.A. equals 0.25 at (lambda) equals 0.6328 micrometers , with a measured spot size of 1.8 micrometers FWHM.

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