Optical crosstalk influence in fiber imaging endoscopes design

Medical endoscopy constitutes a basic and powerful medical tool for the development of minimally invasive procedures for a wide range of medical applications. Fiber endoscopes show a high flexibility, but are severely limited by optical crosstalk. Although they have been manufactured for decades, some of their quality limiting factors have not been exhaustively studied yet, and no design curves have been published so far. In this work, we apply a theoretical model for the study of coupling between multimode optical waveguides to the analysis of crosstalk influence in fiber imaging endoscopes. The fundamental equations and novel design curves will be obtained, enabling the adjustment of the fiber endoscope parameters in order to fulfill the quality requirements for a certain application.