Japanese Journal of Applied Physics Vol. 45, No. 11, 2006, pp.

89438945 #2006 The Japan Society of Applied Physics

Brief Communication

Evaluation of Optical Properties for Development of Ultrahigh-Resolution Flexible Contact Endoscope

Bongsoo LEE, Dong Hyun C HO, Soon-Cheol C HUNG, Jeong-Whan LEE, Gye-Rae TACK, Jeong Han Y I, Jae Hun J UN and Yeon June K ANG1
School of Biomedical Engineering, Research Institute of Biomedical Engineering, College of Biomedical and Health Science, Konkuk University, Chungju 380-701, Korea 1 School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Seoul National University, Seoul 151-741, Korea (Received April 27, 2006; revised July 18, 2006; accepted July 27, 2006; published online November 8, 2006)

In this study, a new exible contact endoscope that is similar to a ber-optic ultrathin endoscope is examined. Using a new optical design with a 0.23 pitch gradient index lens and an ultrathin ber-optic image guide, we have obtained 228 line pairs/ mm ultrahigh-resolution images. The resolution and magnication of the obtained images are measured and analyzed. Also, the relationship between magnication and the working distance from the target to the gradient index (GRIN) lens using GRIN lenses of dierent pitch lengths is determined. Finally, we have taken an image of red blood corpuscles of 6 9 mm average size. [DOI: 10.1143/JJAP.45.8943]
KEYWORDS: gradient index lens, ultrahigh resolution, contact endoscope, magnication

A contact endoscope that can magnify an image inside a human body was rst introduced by Hamous in 1979.1) The optical system of this contact endoscope comprises a lens or a system of lenses to be placed in front of an existing rigid endoscope objective and another lens or system of lenses to be placed between the ocular of this endoscope and the eye to obtain a highly magnied image.2) Also, the working distance from an object to an objective lens of a contact endoscope is very short compared with that of a general endoscope to obtain a magnied image. The diameter of a conventional contact endoscope should be much larger than that of a ber-optic ultrathin endoscope, which has a diameter of less than 1 mm. Therefore, its medical usage is very limited because its diameter is extremely large and it is not exible. In this study, a new magnifying contact endoscope that is similar to a ber-optic ultrathin exible endoscope is examined. This new contact endoscope system has many advantages such as a simple optical design, a small diameter, exibility and a high resolution compared with an existing contact rigid endoscope. The objectives of this study are to take an image of less than 5 mm size using an optical design of an ultrahigh resolution exible contact endoscope and to compare its image resolution with that of our exible contact endoscope, which was investigated in our previous study. In our previous study, 3.62-times-magnied and 64 lp/mm (line pairs per millimeter) high-resolution images were obtained using a new optical design with a 0.23-pitch gradient index lens and a high-resolution ber-optic image guide and we measured and analyzed the resolution and magnication of the obtained images.3) The USAF resolution target which was used to measure the image resolution of the new exible magnifying endoscope in our previous study typically has a glass cover whose thickness is 1.58 mm. Therefore, we could not decrease the working distance from the target to the GRIN lens to less than 2.55 mm. However, we can decrease the working distance until 0.4 mm using a dierent USAF resolution target without a glass cover, to obtain about 35-times-magnied and 228 lp/mm ultrahigh-resolution images using a 0.23-pitch GRIN lens

and an image guide that has 4.6 mm microbers in this study. Also, the relationship between magnication and the working distance from the target to the GRIN lens using GRIN lenses of dierent pitch lengths is determined. Finally, we have taken an image of red blood corpuscles of 6 9 mm average size. Generally, it is impossible to capture an image of a subcell whose average size is less than 10 mm in the body even if an ultrahigh-resolution endoscope with 3 5mm-diameter step-index microbers is used owing to the phenomena of cross-talk and leaky rays among microbers in the image guide.46) Two types of silica image guides, manufactured by Sumitomo Ltd., Japan, are used to transfer an image in this study. One image guide has about 30,000 microbers of 4.6 mm diameter and the other has about 10,000 microbers of 3.7 mm diameter. The overall diameters of the image guides are 0.8 and 0.37 mm, respectively. The GRIN lenses used in this study have dierent pitch lengths of 0.23, 0.25, and 0.29. The properties of the image guides and GRIN lenses used in this experiment are listed in Table I. Figures 1 and 2 show the optical designs for a conventional endoscope and the new ultrahigh-resolution exible contact endoscope, respectively. In Fig. 1, the size of the image on the distal face of the image guide is much smaller than that of the examined object owing to the working distance from the GRIN lens to the object. However, in Fig. 2, the image on the image guide is magnied and is larger than the examined object because of the gap (d1 ) from the image guide to the GRIN lens. Also, the working

Table I. Physical properties of image guides and GRIN lenses. Diameter of microber (mm) Diameter of image guide (mm) Image guide Length of image guide (cm) Core material Cladding material Numerical aperture (NA) Pitch length GRIN lens Length of lens (mm) Numerical aperture (NA) 0.23 4.26 0.46 3.7 0.37 50.5 4.6 0.8 50.5

Silica including GeO2 Silica including F >0:35 0.25 4.63 0.46 0.29 5.37 0.46

E-mail address: bslee@kku.ac.kr

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Working distance

GRIN lens

Coherent fiber bundle CCD

Monitor Acquired image

Fig. 1. Optical design for conventional endoscope.

Object

Transferred image

GRIN lens

Coherent fiber bundle

CCD

Object Monitor d2 d1 Acquired image

Fig. 2. New optical design for ultrahigh-resolution exible contact endoscope.

Transferred image

Table II. Measured image resolutions of conventional endoscope and exible contact endoscope using USAF resolution target. Diameter of microber (mm) Conventional endoscope Flexible contact endoscope 4.6 3.7 4.6 3.7 Image resolution (lp/mm) 32 28.51 228 161

distance (d2 ) should be much shorter than that of the conventional endoscope shown in Fig. 1. Therefore, the magnication and resolution of an image should be determined as functions of distances d1 and d2 in the new exible contact endoscope. To obtain accurate distances d1 and d2 , a motorized nanoscale stage (esp300, Newport) of 0.1 mm resolution was used. The resolutions of the conventional endoscope and the ultrahigh-resolution exible contact endoscope were measured using the USAF resolution target for the two types of image guides with 4.6- and 3.7-mm-diameter microbers. As listed in Table II, the resolution of the exible contact endoscope was more than 7 times that of the conventional endoscope when a 0.23-pitch GRIN lens and an image guide with 4.6 mm microbers were used. Theoretically, the relationship between d1 and d2 can be determined by the physical properties of the GRIN lens such as the refractive index on the axis, the gradient index constant, and the length of the GRIN lens. The mathematical expression used to nd the relationship between the distances d1 and d2 was shown in our previous study.3) An image of group 7-6 (228 lp/mm) for the USAF resolution target was taken and the size of the gap in group 7-6 is about 2.19 mm. Figure 3 shows images of group 7-1 (128 lp/mm) and group 7-6 (228 lp/mm) for the USAF resolution target. Figure 4 shows the relationship between magnication and the working distance from the target to the GRIN lens (d2 ) for various pitch lengths of the GRIN lens using an image guide with 4.6-mm-diameter microbers. As the working distance decreases, magnication increases in all cases. When the 0.23-pitch-length GRIN lens and the image guide with 4.6-mm-diameter microbers are used, the highest

Fig. 3. USAF resolution target images of group 7-1 (128 lp/mm) and group 7-6 (228 lp/mm) obtained using new exible contact endoscope.

40 35 30
Magnification
0.25 pitch 0.23 pitch

25 20 15 10 5 0 0 0.5 1 1.5 2
Working distance d 2 [mm]
0.29 pitch

Fig. 4. Relationship between magnication and working distance (d2 ) using GRIN lenses of dierent pitch lengths and image guide with 4.6 mm microbers.

magnication, more than about 35 times that of the conventional endoscope, is attained. Also, its magnication is about 10 times higher than that obtained in our previous study. Another relationship, which is between measured resolution using a USAF resolution target and working distance, is shown in Fig. 5, where the 0.23 pitch length GRIN lens and the image guide with 4.6-mm-diameter microbers are used. Also, the resolution of the conventional endoscope as a function of working distance is shown in Fig. 5. The optical system of a conventional endoscope comprises a 0.29 pitch GRIN lens and the distance from the image guide to the GRIN lens (d1 ) is always zero. Therefore, images cannot be

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240 210 Resolution [lp/mm] 180 150 120 90 60 30 0 0

flexible contact endoscope

conventional endoscope

Working distance d 2 [mm]

10 m

Fig. 5. Relationship between resolution and working distance (d2 ) when 0.23-pitch GRIN lens and 4.6 mm microber image guide are used in exible contact and conventional endoscopes.

Fig. 7. Red blood corpuscle image obtained using new exible contact endoscope.

40 35 30 Magnification 25 20 15 10 5 0 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 Distance(d1) from image guide to GRIN lens [mm]

Fig. 6. Relationship between magnication and distance from image guide to GRIN lens (d1 ) when 0.23-pitch GRIN lens and 4.6 mm microber image guide are used in exible contact endoscope.

obtained at working distances less than 4 mm. In Fig. 5, the measured resolutions of a exible contact endoscope are shown to be constant in the working distance range of 0.4 0.8 mm because the maximum resolution of an USAF resolution target is 228 lp/mm. The real image resolution of a exible contact endoscope is expected to be higher than 228 lp/mm when d2 is less than 0.8 mm. The relationship between magnication and d1 is also shown in Fig. 6. In this case, a 0.23-pitch GRIN lens and a 4.6-mm-microber image guide are used, and as distance d1 increases, magnication also increases linearly as expected. Figure 7 shows an image of red blood corpuscles taken using an ultrahigh-resolution exible contact endoscope with the 0.23-pitch GRIN lens and the image guide with 4.6 mm microbers. Typically, the average size of a red blood

corpuscle is in the range of 6 9 mm, but the image in Fig. 7 appears slightly smaller and unclear because our sample is fully dried. In this study, micron-order images were taken using a new optical design with a GRIN lens and a high-resolution beroptic image guide. The resolutions and magnications of the obtained images were measured and analyzed. The highest image resolution obtained was 228 lp/mm when a 0.23-pitch GRIN lens and a 4.6 mm microber image guide were used at d1 12:4 mm and d2 0:4 mm. The magnication of this image is about 35 times higher than that of a conventional endoscope. Further studies will be carried out, namely, to fabricate a exible contact endoscope on the basis of the result of this study and to analyze the image quality of this contact endoscope. Working distance d2 can be easily xed using a thin glass plate or other. It is expected that a new type of exible contact endoscope that can take subcellular images in the human body will be developed for early diagnoses. This paper was supported by Konkuk University in 2005.

1) H. Xiaoming, M. Haiqiang, D. Manquan, S. Jianyong, S. Yong, L. Kela, L. Xiaoman and H. Tengbo: Acta Otolaryngol. 121 (2001) 98. 2) J. Hamou: U.S. Patent 4385810 (1983). 3) B. Lee, D. H. Cho, S. C. Chung, G. M. Eom, K. S. Kim and Y. J. Kang: Jpn. J. Appl. Phys. 43 (2004) L1397. 4) L. Huang and U. Oesterberg: Proc. SPIE 2536 (1995) 480. 5) A. W. Snyder and D. J. Mitchell: J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 64 (1974) 599. 6) A. W. Snyder and J. D. Love: Optical Waveguide Theory (Chapman and Hall, New York, 1983) p. 567.

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