A high-resolution fiber-optic confocal microscope

A novel design of a simple reflection confocal microscope with a multimode graded-index fiber output as an effective way for improving the dynamic range of the resolving power and achieving a submicron spatial resolution is presented. The basic idea for obtaining high spatial resolution involves the following advanced scheme properties. (1) It is an apertureless confocal arrangement in which the input laser emission with its maximum power is launched directly to the test object. (2) It uses a high-numerical-aperture focusing objective (NA>0.8) that provides high depth and spatial discriminations and thus, high axial and lateral resolutions are obtained. (3) It uses a graded-index multimode fiber (50-mum-core diameter) for signal detection rather than a conventional pinhole or single-mode fiber. The graded-index fiber ensures efficient launching and maintenance of high laser powers, and high sensitivity of signal detection. Moreover, according to the equivalent-Gaussian-mode model, the intensity mode distribution into the graded-index fiber can be presented as an equivalent Gaussian mode distribution. As a result, a significant reduction of the mode noise of the intensity distribution and of signal fluctuations is obtained. Thus, a regime of high-output power is achieved that provides high resolving power and a submicron axial resolution of 0.4 mum.