Depixelation of coherent fiber bundle imaging by fiber-core-targeted scanning.

A novel fast proximal scanning method, to the best of our knowledge, termed fiber-core-targeted scanning (FCTS), is proposed for illuminating individual fiber cores sequentially to remove the pixelation effect in fiber bundle (FB) imaging. FCTS is based on a galvanometer scanning system. Through a dynamic control of the scan trajectory and speed using the prior knowledge of fiber core positions, FCTS experimentally verifies a precise sequential delivery of laser pulses into fiber cores at a maximal speed of 45,000 cores per second. By applying FCTS on a FB-based photoacoustic forward-imaging probe, the results demonstrate that FCTS eliminates the pixelation effect and improves the imaging quality.