The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Mar. 23, 1999
Filed:
May. 22, 1997
Michael Mandella, Cupertino, CA (US);
Mark H Garrett, Morgan Hill, CA (US);
Optical Biopsy Technologies, Inc., Morgan Hill, CA (US);
Abstract
A confocal optical scanning system using a flexible optical emissive fiber or fiber laser and having a lasing cavity defined within the fiber. The system in-couples a signal beam produced when a probe beam generated by the fiber laser is reflected from a scanned object back into the lasing cavity. The perturbation created in the cavity by the in-coupling of the signal beam is detected by a transducer. Specifically, the perturbation may be the signal beam itself, an oscillation mode of the cavity induced by the in-coupled signal beam or a combination of the signal beam and the probe beam. In a preferred embodiment of the invention the system also has a polarizing assembly for altering a signal polarization of the signal beam and rotate it to either a resonant polarization supported by the cavity or a non-resonant polarization not supported by the cavity.