SCANNING MINIATURE OPTICAL PROBES WITH OPTICAL DISTORTION CORRECTION AND ROTATIONAL CONTROL

摘要

The invention relates to an optical probe (130) including a sheath; a flexible, bi-directionally rotatable optical tansmission system (10, 135, 137) positioned within the sheath (44); and a viscous damping fluid (140) located in the sheath. The optical transmission system is capable of transmitting, focussing and collecting lignt of a predetermined range of wavelengths. the sheath and the viscous damping fluid are transpatent to at least some of the wavelengths of that light. The index of refracion of the viscous fluid is typically chosen to remove the optical effects induces by propagation through said sheath. Optical probes having a diameter less than substantially 500 νm for use in scanning light from a long, highly flexible fiber (10) to a sample. In one embodiment the porbe includes a viscous damping fluid suitable to prevent non-uniform rotational distortion (NURD). Such probes are used in Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) and other inerferometric imaging and ranging systems, as well as for delivery of other imaging modalities (e.g. fluorescence) or therapeutic optical sources.