Single-shot wide-field imaging in reflection by using a single multimode fiber

Abstract

A single multimode fiber (MMF) provides almost an ideal optical channel to constitute a hair-thin endoscope for minimally invasive biomedical imaging at depths in tissue, especially if the imaging operation can be performed with one single shot in reflection mode, which, however, remains challenging to date. In this work, we present single-shot wide-field reflectance imaging by using a single MMF as the illumination unit and imaging probe simultaneously. To achieve single-shot image capture, a reflection matrix of the fiber was built by a learning-assisted approach for the universal inverse conversion from the output amplitudes to the input amplitudes. The performance was tested by imaging more than 30 000 natural scenes projected by a digital micromirror device, and an averaged Pearson correlation coefficient over 0.84 with respect to the ground truth was achieved in the experiment. Furthermore, the ability to image dynamic scenes at a high frame rate of up to 180 frames per second was demonstrated together with real-time observation of a freely moving microneedle located at the distal end of the MMF. The proposed reflection-mode single-fiber imaging scheme paves the way for practical video-rate microendoscopy at depths in tissue in a minimally invasive manner.