A Handheld Electromagnetically Actuated Fiber Optic Raster Scanner for Reflectance Confocal Imaging of Biological Tissues

We present a hand-held device aimed for reflectance-mode confocal imaging of biological tissues. The device consists of a light carrying optical fiber and a miniaturized raster scanner located at the distal end of the fiber. It is fabricated by mounting a polarization maintaining optical fiber on a cantilever beam that is attached to another beam such that their bending axes are perpendicular to each other. Fiber scanner is driven by electromagnetic forces and enables large fiber deflections with low driving currents. Optical resolutions of the system are 1.55 and 8.45 μm in the lateral and axial directions, respectively. Functionality of the system is demonstrated by obtaining confocal images of a fly wing and a human colon tissue sample.