System for multispectral imaging of fluorescence

摘要

A confocal scanning system for the multispectral imaging of fluorescence from a tissue sample based on time domain mapping of spectral components of the fluorescence using coated fiber tips disposed on multimode optical fibers. A fiber grating spectrometer based on two serial arrays of coated fiber tips disposed on multi-mode fiber, and delay lines between them provide spectral slices of the florescence. The coated fiber tips are arranged such that the shortest wavelength spectral components are reflected first and the longest wavelength components last. Fiber-based delay lines delay the reflections from each successive fiber tip such that they are uniformly separated in time, and in the order of its spectral wavelength number. The spectral bins are used to colorize the images to show the presence of abnormal tissue at cellular spatial resolution. A second scan with increased laser flux can destroy the diseased tissue revealed by the first scan.

主权项

1. A system for multispectral confocal mapping of a tissue, comprising:
an illumination source for producing an illumination beam propagating along an optical path towards the tissue; a first lens system for focusing said illumination beam to a focused spot on said tissue to optically induce fluorescence therefrom within a desired wavelength region; optically coupled to said first lens system, a confocal scanner to scan the focused spot across said tissue; a fiber optic spectrometer, including a plurality of multimode optical fibers operating at said desired wavelength region, one of said plurality of multimode optical fibers having an entrance aperture acting as a confocal pinhole for said confocal scanner, and said fiber optic spectrometer also including a plurality of coated fiber tips each consisting of a thin film filter deposited between the ends of two of the plurality of multimode optical fibers that are connected together to provide a temporal sequence of wavelength selective reflections of the fluorescence; a second lens system to focus the fluorescence from said tissue into said plurality of multimode optical fibers, said second lens system having a sufficiently low numerical aperture relative to said plurality of multimode optical fibers for the fluorescence to remain a Gaussian beam as it propagates within the plurality of multimode optical fibers; and a detector optically coupled to receive said temporal sequence of wavelength selective reflections to provide a suitable output indicative of the spectral components of the fluorescence.