Isis Innovation Limited

Imperial Innovations Limited

Mark Andrew Aquilla Neil

Tony Wilson

Rimvydas Juskaitis

Paul Michael William French

Martin James Booth

Christopher William Dunsby

Carl Paterson

An endoscope includes a light source operable to generate coherent incident light, and a plurality of imaging optical fibers that are arranged in a fiber bundle, arranged to receive light at a proximal end of the fiber bundle, and arranged to transmit light to a distal end of the fiber bundle. The endoscope further includes a spatial light phase modulator between the light source and the fiber bundle, and arranged to receive the incident light from the light source and to adjust the relative phase of the incident light entering each of the plurality of imaging optical fibers.

Determining phase variation of light in an endoscope

An imaging apparatus comprising: A spatial light modulator () operable to receive incident light () representing an incident light image and to intensity modulate said incident light to form spatially modulated () light; and an image capture device () operable to receive said spatially modulated light and to detect an intensity value for different portions of said spatially modulated light to form a modulated light image therefrom; wherein said spatial light modulator attenuates different parts of said incident light by different proportions such that intensity values of said incident light image are given by a combination of intensity values of said modulated light image captured by said image capture device and data representing proportions of attenuation applied to corresponding parts of said incident light image by said spatial light modulator.

Adaptive image processing and capture

The confocal microscope has two matched light sources: a first light source ( ) and a second light source ( ). The light sources ( ) are arranged to illuminate opposite sides of a modulating mask ( ). The light either reflecting from or passing through the modulating mask ( ) is then used to illuminate an object O supported on a mount ( ). The microscope is arranged so that the object O is mounted on the opposite side of the mask ( ) to a camera ( ) such that light reflected from the object O passes through the modulating mask ( ) before being captured by the camera ( ). Subtraction of the image produced using the second light source ( ) from the image produced using the first light source ( ) generates a confocal image that contains substantially less noise than is possible with available confocal microscopy apparatus.

Confocal microscopy apparatus and method

The wavefront sensing device consists of a light source, a binary phase mask ( ), a fixed focus lens ( ) and at least two finite sized spatially separated detectors ( ) positioned in the plane of focus of the wavefront sensing device. The binary phase mask ( ) simultaneously applies a positive bias and a negative bias to the wavefront of the incident light such that a pair of spatially separated light points are generated in the plane of focus and detected by the detectors ( ). The difference in intensity between the pair of light points is representative of the aberration of the wavefront of the incident light from the ideal.

Wavefront sensing device

The confocal imaging apparatus includes first and second light sources ( ) located at opposite ends of a fibre optic bundle ( ). One end of the fibre optic bundle ( ) is located adjacent the object to be imaged the opposite end of the fibre optic bundle ( ) is located adjacent a camera ( ) that records the images received from the fibre optic bundle ( ). An analyser ( ) is used to extract a confocal image from the image of the object produced using the illumination from the first light source ( ) and the image of the object produced using illumination from the second light source ( ). The imaging apparatus is particularly suited to endoscopy applications and is able to provide video rate confocal images.

Imaging apparatus

An object is illuminated by a light source, and a periodic pattern of transparent and non-transparent stripes is superimposed onto the object. At least three images are recorded at different spatial phases of the pattern by means of a microscope of shallow focal depth, and a three-dimensional image containing only in-focus detail is then derived from the recorded images.

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Botley, United Kingdom

Mark Andrew Aquilla Neil