Cellular imaging over an area that covers many cells is critical in several domains such as histological analysis for disease diagnosis, cellular dynamic studies, etc. This is easily achieved with the availability of powerful microscopes available at our disposal in labs and hospitals around the world. The situation changes dramatically, however, when such imaging needs to be performed inside the body. Small size and cellular level resolution pose a great technical challenge for scenarios involving in-vivo studies. Several researchers have adopted multicore fibers combined with micro lenses to transfer images from within the body to the detector placed outside the body. Technological platforms such as confocal, multiphoton, optical coherence tomography, etc., have been demonstrated based on such fibers. Unfortunately, multicore fibers suffer from several issues such as crosstalk and dead areas between the adjacent cores. Scanning fiber endoscopes have mitigated these issues and offer a platform that is capable of acquiring high resolution images inside the body. The authors of this paper developed such an endoscope, which can acquire images at cellular level and high frame rate. Using hard stainless steel components, including glue with large psi strength, they were able to minimize the damping loss and preserve the vibrational forces at the joints. With careful engineering, they minimized the mechanical cross coupling between the two orthogonal scanning axes. This is a critical improvement for adoption of this technology for clinical applications.

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