1 February 1996

OPTICS
COMMUNICATIONS
Optics Communications 123 (1996) 629-636
Transmission of the image signal with the use of a multimode fiber
Maxim A. Bolshtyansky, Boris Ya. Zeldovich
CREOL: Center for Research and Education in Optics and Lasers, University of Central Florida,
12424 Research Parkway, Suite 4GQ, Orlando, FL 32836-3271, USA
Received 17 May 1995
Abstract
ho schemes of the image acquisition through a multimode fiber are suggested. Both are based on the assumption that
the input-to-output propagation Green function is stabilized by some or other technique. In both schemes the object is
characterized by the transverse distribution of reflection pattern, and the reflected signal is to be collected by a photodetector
for further computer processing. The applications for endoscopy are discussed.
1. Introduction
The problem of getting pictorial information from
some or other closed space is important not only from
the application point of view but also as an intel-
lectual challenge. Multimode optical fibers in princi-
ple can transmit rather large number of information-
bearing pixels: it essentially coincides with the num-
ber of modes and may by as large as 150 x 150 for a
fiber with the optical core diameter about 0.3 mm and
the step of refractive index An = 0.01. Small diame-
ter allows for safe penetration of a monofiber endo-
scope into the most intricate parts of the human body
or of a complicated mechanical or electronic device.
The difficulties connected with the use of multimode
monofiber are also well known: the image is scrambled
at the first millimeter of in-fiber propagation. Even in
pure theoretical investigation of a near-optimal case of
parabolic-index fiber with a resolution 100 x 100 el-
ements, the scrambling distance does not exceed few
meters [ 11. However, the interference-type mixing of
the waves in a fiber is quite different from the thermo-
dynamically irreversible processes in particle mechan-
its. Just those specific features of wave propagation -
reversibility and reproducibility - allow in principle to
overcome the scrambling and to restore the encoded
image.
New group of ideas has emerged in connection with
the discovery of such phenomena as Optical Phase
Conjugation and Dynamic Holography [ l-31. In
particular, it was suggested [4] by Yariv that the pro-
duction of phase conjugated (or time reversed) replica
of the scrambled pattern of the laser radiation and its
subsequent back propagation through an identical fiber
allows to get the unscrambled image, just due to the
time-reversibility of the wave propagation process.
Up to now the reconstruction of the image via non-
linear optical phase conjugation was realized [ 51 not
through an identical fiber, but through the original one.
While itself it was an important achievement, the im-
age appeared in [S] at the wrong end of the en-
doscope (i.e. inside the body for the case of med-
ical endoscopy). The reason was the practical im-
possibility of creation of two identical fibers that are
placed and bent identically with interferometric accu-
racy. Another disadvantage is the requirement of a sta-
0030~4018/%/%12.00 0 1996 Ekevier Science B.V. All rights reserved
SSDI 0030-4018(95)00589-7
630 MA. Bolxhtyansky. B.Ya. Zeldovich/ Optics Communications 123 (1996) 629-636
ble wave front for hologram recording. But in reality
the object under vision can very lightly breath. It
means that the phase of reflected light is unstable and
one must use more complicated technique with better
time resolution for successful phase conjugation. An-
other scheme for unscrambling the image transmitted
through a multimode fiber was suggested in [ 61. How-
ever, that scheme required a formation of a reference
wave, so to say, inside the body.
Nowadays endoscopes are made of multilens sys-
tems or of a large array of individual low-mode fibers.
In both cases the diameter of the device is rather large
(several millimeters or more) while the number of re-
solvable pixels stays limited. The main principle of
modern endoscopy is the illumination of the object by
some source of light and collection of the reflected ra-
diation into the endoscope to transmit the information
about the image as an optical signal. This ideology
fails in the case of vision through a very thin device
such as a single multimode fiber endoscope because of
the weakness of optical signal collected by the fiber.
Usually more powerful signal is required for fast phase
conjugation. This paper is devoted to the suggestion
and discussion of two schemes which are supposed to
allow the image acquisition with the use of just one
multiomode fiber, and to overcome the above difficulty
of low intensity of the collected light.
2. Random transverse tomography
This scheme is based on the assumption that we
have a possibility to illuminate the object by the se-
quence
P)(x,y) = IE(x y)12
7 9
n = 1, . . . . N
(1)
of speckle-patterns. For example, such a sequence may
be achieved at the output of the fiber if various ini-
tial configurations of optical field Ei, (x, y) are gen-
erated by the transmission of a laser beam through
a computer-controlled spatial light modulator SLM.
Then the spatially modulated beam is to be sent to the
fiber input, see Fig. 1. The output profile I()(x, y)
of each pattern is stored back into the computer. The
object is supposed to have spatially nonuniform trans-
verse distribution of diffusive reflection coefficient
R = R(x, Y) (2)
SLM L Fiber
Fig. 1. A scheme of random transverse tomography. Ph, photode-
tector; SLM, spatial light modulator; L, lens.
which constitutes the picture to be revealed. Opti-
cal waves scattered by the object are to be registered
by a miniature photodetector. The latter collects light
without any spatial resolution. In this way the pho-
tocurrent of the detector i is a functional which (for a
given object picture R( x, y) ) takes different values
for the different illuminating speckle-patterns ZCn):
itn)
=A
I()(~,Y)W,Y) dxdy,
where A is a constant.
Our statement is that the picture R( x, y) can be
reconstructed from the known patterns I() and mea-
sured values i(). The accuracy of reconstruction de-
pends on the total number N of the speckle patterns
and on the signal-to-noise ratio. It should be empha-
sized that we do not make an assumption about or-
thogonality or completeness of the system of functions
I(). If the system of I() is complete (and still non-
orthogonal), exact reconstruction is possible for zero
noise level.
Let us emphasize the difference between our
scheme and traditional ones. In usual schemes the
information is transmitted from the object to the
observer in the form of spatially modulated optical
waves. Our scheme utilizes the electrical transmis-
sion of the temporal sequence i() (n = n(t)) of
the values of current registered by the light collect-
ing photodetector. It means that the electrical signal
flows from the object to observer. It is in the direction
from the observer to the object, that we are going to
send fixed patterns EC) of rather intense light field.
The advantages of such a combined - forward optical
and backward electrical - flow of information are
discussed below.
MA. Bolshtyansky. B.Ya. Zeldovich/Optics Communications 123 (1996) 629-636 631
The simplest way of presenting the algorithm of
reconstruction is to assume that the speckle-patterns
are orthogonal in some sense (while actually they are
not). It is convenient to describe the patterns ZCn) as
vectors ZCn) = (I;, Z;, . . . . Z;) of a multidimensional
space; the dimension D of the latter equals to the num-
ber of independent pixels. In that description the orig-
inal object picture R( x, y) may be also considered as
a vector R = (RI, R2, . . . . RD). The light is diffusely
reflected by the object and is collected and detected
by the photodiod, so that the photocurrent i() may be
written as
i(n) = A
R(x,y)l)(x,y) dxdy = Z.R. (4)
Here we have introduced the definition of the scalar
product in our D-dimensional vector space as
X . y = Xl,Jq + x2y2 + . . . + XDYD. (5)
Important properties of the intensity speckle-patterns
z(n) = (I
, , . ..Zzl are that 1) f; 2 0 and 2) the varia-
tions 6Z.y are about (Zy). Here the angular brackets de-
note the averaging over the whole ensemble of those
patterns; for D >> 1 it more or less coincident with
the averaging over all the pixels for the given speckle-
pattern:
(6)
and we assume also statistically homogeneous illumi-
nation. It means that (ZT) = (I) depends neither on
II nor on ,j. It is convenient to subtract the pedestal
part of the illumination, .Zi = 1; - (I). Introducing the
normalized vector
Jkn 1; - (0
j;=IJI= py-@
(7)
we can write the measured values of the photocur-
rent in terms of normalized and pedestal-free pro-
jections:
iCn) = IJCn)l(R.j()) f(i).
(8)
The suggestion we want to make in this paper is to
present the vector
R,, = A k &)j@) + B
(9)
ll=l
a() = R-j =
i() _ (i)
(J(n)/
(IO)
as our best estimate of the original image R. Here A
and B are some normalizing constants which are to be
adjusted to get the proper average value of (R,,) M
(R) and the eye-pleasing contrast \6R,,j z (R) of
the reconstructed image. If the goal is to achieve the
formal minimum of square-averaged deviation ((R,,, -
R12), then, the best choice of A and B may be shown
to be
A=$ B=(R)=$Rk.
(II)
k=l
It is worth mentioning here that for this choice of
A and B, the lager is N, the better is the quality of
reconstruction, and
,mm R,,, = R. (121
-+
However, we foresee that the actual choice of A and
B will be done directly in the observation process .
If j(*) are orthogonal and the number N of patterns
(n = 1,2, . . . . N) coincides with the dimension D,
i.e. with the number of resolvable pixels, then the Eq.
(10) corresponds to the standard decomposition into
a complete orthonormal set. Then the Eq. (9) with
A = 1, B = (R) gives an exact image reconstruction,
if there was no noise in the process of data acquisition.
Actual vectors J() apparently will not be orthog-
onal. There are some methods to produce the set of
mutually orthogonal and even complete field patterns
E!) (x, y) at the input of fibers core. Due to unitar-
ity of the propagation operator they will preserve that
property at the output cross-section and at the ob-
ject space, but for the field Ei:,). However, we are in-
terested in the orthogonality of the intensity patterns
Jfn) (x, y) = I()( X, y) - (I), which is evidently not
guaranteed by the orthogonality of the field patterns.
We would like to emphasize that even in the case
of nonorthogonal set .ZCn) one can get a reasonable re-
construction of the original image. The formal condi-
tion of linear independence and completeness of a sys-
tem of N functions in D-dimensional space requires,
632 MA. Bolshtyonsky. B.Ya. ZeI dovich/ Optics Comunicariom 123 (19%) 629-636
in particular, that N = D. However in the presence
of any noise and multiplicative distortions that formal
condition is not so important. Moreover, in that case
an overcomplete set of vectors (which is not orthog-
onal anyhow) may give some advantage in respect to
the noise suppression. If there is no noise, but some
nonorthogonality is present, then for the set of statis-
tically independent vectors j@) one can make an es-
timation of the error introduced by the reconstruction
algorithm Eq. (9) with A and B from Eq. ( 11):
Here B is a vector with each component being equeal
to (R) = B, i.e. B = (B, B, . . . . B). At first glance the
Eq. (13) shows rather large error for N = D or even
N = 20. However, our computer simulations of that
algorithm show that this error does not prevent the ob-
server from recognition and making proper judgment
about the object under consideration. This statement
may be formulated in a different way. Namely, some
smoothening of reconstructed pattern may be done ei-
ther by the observer brain or by the computer.In that
way we are ready to sacrifice the number D =d2 of
resolved two-dimensional pixels to get lower error in
the smoothened image. Here d =fi is the number of
pixels along a one-dimensional line crossing our two-
dimensional image. This discussion shows also that
one can tolerate quite a considerable amount of the
noise appearing at the stage of photocurrent acquisi-
tion.
The statements made above may be proven math-
ematically by the analytical calculations. We prefer
however to present here the results of a small frac-
tion of a large number of computer simulation ex-
periments which were done by us. Fig. 2a shows an
example of the original pattern R(x, y). It contains
D =d2 =20 x 20 = 400 pixels with 3 different gray
levels (0, 0.5, 1). The algorithm Eq. (9) was used.
Figs. 2b and 2c show the reconstructed patterns with
different number N of elementary patterns I() (x, y)
to which the original image Fig 2a was projected. For
the Fig. 2b it was N = D = 400 and for the Fig.
2c it was N = 20 = 800. We see that some judge-
ment about the object can be made, especially if we
are interested in rather large-scale details. The use of
the algorithm Eq. (9) required some preparatory cal-
culations which are image-independent and deal with
the particular realization of the statistically generated
set of the functions I()( X, y) . After that preparatory
stage, the application of the algorithm to the particular
image reconstruction required about N x D multipli-
cations and additions. The procedure was realized via
BorlandTM Pascal v.7.0 language at Pentium 90 MHz
computer and required less than 1 second of compu-
tation for N = 20 = 800.
As one can see, this method is far from exact recon-
struction for N = D. Better results can be achieved by
other improved algorithm of image calculation. The
main idea is to find the orthogonal basis e and the co-
efficients bck) of the object decomposition to this ba-
sis using the knowledge of scalar products (j(l), eck))
and (J
(r) R). The image was reconstructed exactly
1
via the algorithm just described RreC = CL, bkek, Fig.
3a. If some multiplicative noise was imposed on the
values i() of photocurrent from Eq. (8)) then the re-
construction was not exact: the noise in the data of the
current fSi()/ifn) constituted 2% for the Fig. 3b and
10 % for the Fig. 3c. The largest part of the calcula-
tion of bk can be done without any information about
i() and before the observation. After this preparatory
calculation we need only about 20 operations for the
image reconstruction. Hence it takes approximately
the same time as in the previous case to calculate the
reconstructed image, while the quality is much better.
3. Phase conjugate scanning
At the scheme suggested above the photocurrent i()
from Eq. (8) consists of two contributions. The first
one is rather small informative part, while the second
contribution is a large constant that corresponds to
the spatially averaged value of the reflection from the
object. In this Section we suggest a considerable im-
provement of that scheme which makes it much less
vulnerable to the noise.
Suppose that each pattern Z()(x, y) contains a
bright spot at a point (x,, y,,) in the object plane,
and some scattered radiation with lower intensity.
We do not even require the bright spot to carry the
most part of patterns energy ss I() (x, y) dx dy; the
only assumption we make is that the local intensity
Z()(X~, y,,) is considerably larger, than the values
I() (x, y) at all other points (x, y). Fig 4a shows
the reconstructed image for the case N = D = 400
MA. Bolshtyw~~~. B.Ya. Zeldovich/ Optics Communications 123 (19%) 629-636 633
(4
Fig. 2. Examples of image acquisition by the
(c) reconstructed image with N = 800.
04
random transverse tomography method: (a) object; (b) reconstmcted image with N = 400;
(a)
(4
(c)
Fig. 3. Examples of the improved random transverse tomography
signal ratio 2 8; (c) noise to signal ratio is 10 %.
with the pattern functions I() containing a very low
fraction (4%) of energy in the proper point (x, y) ;
it. means that the spot illumination I() (x, y,,) is
brighter approximately by a factor D x 0.04 = 16
than the averaged illumination intensity I()( X, y)
for any other point. We see rather good quality of the
resulting reconstructed image. Figs. 4b and 4c show
the images obtained for larger fractions ( 10% for 4b
and 40% for 4c) of the total energy deposited into the
proper spot. Here we estimate the quality of recon-
struction as superb. The quality of the reconstructed
patterns actually was even better at the computer
monitor; it was deteriorated somehow by the use of
method: (a) exact reconstruction; (b) reconstruction with noise to
simplified version of gray pattern printing software.
It is quite evident that the lager is the percentage of
energy going to the proper spot ( xn, yn) , the higher
will be the quality of reconstruction.
Since the results in the case with bright spots
I() ( x~, y,,) are much better, a question arises: how
can one design such a set of patterns? It is just here
the technology of Optical Phase Conjugation gives
the natural solution of the problem, see the scheme
shown at the Fig. 5. It assumes two stages: preparatory
process and the work stage.
During the preparatory stage one should shine the
laser light from an individual point of the object
634
MA. Bolshtyansky, B.Ya. Zeldouich/Optics Communicatiotas I 23 (19%) 629-636
(4
Fig. 4. Examples of image acquisition by the phase conjugate scanning: (a) reconstraction
of conjugation is 10%; c. quality of conjugation is 40%.
a
L Fiber space
Fig. 5. A scheme of phase conjugate scanning. (a) preparatory
stage; (b) work stage; H, volume hologram; L, lens; Ph. photode-
tector.
(x,, y,,) towards the optical core of the objects end
of our multimode fiber, Fig 5a. The corresponding
field EC) (x, y) propagates through the fiber and af-
ter that it should be registered in a volume hologram
(e.g. in a photorefractive crystal) with the use of a
reference wave B() exp(ib,r). That process is re-
peated for each point (n,, yn> of the objects space.
Each elementary hologram
(B(O))* exp( -ik-,r)E()(r) + cc.
(14)
is recorded by its own reference wave B() exp(i&,r)
with different values of k,, and all the elementary
(c)
with quality of conjugation 4%; (b) quality
holograms Eq. ( 14) are supposed to be added into the
same recording volume.
At the work stage we suggest to produce the nec-
essary patterns Ztn) (x, y) by the optical replay of the
holographically stored wave patterns. The holographic
version of optical phase conjugation consists in the
illumination of the recorded hologram by the recon-
structing wave B() exp(ik,r) with k, =-kn, B() =
(a))*, i.e. by the wave which is time-reversed or
phase conjugate version of the reference wave B(n)
used at the recording process, Fig. 5b. If we assume
that the hologram of our speckle-field possesses rea-
sonable angular selectivity (see e.g. [ 7]>, then the
read-out process will produce the phase conjugate (or
time-reversed) replica of the n-th recorded field only:
E)(r) = const. JB(n)/2{E(n) (r)}*. (15)
Time-reversibility of the process of light propagation
through the fiber leads to the reconstruction of the
field E()(x, y) which illuminates the object and has
very bight spot at the original source point (x,, , y,, ) .
Modern technology of optical phase conjugation and
holography allows to expect the conjugation quality
factor as large as 50% to 90%. This factor determines
just the fraction of energy delivered back to the orig-
inal source spot.
We do not exclude the possibility to use the wave-
length selectivity of volume holograms for the selec-
tion of the necessary wave EC) (x, y) to be recon-
structed [ 81. In that case both the recording of a holo-
MA. Bolshtyansky. B.Ya. Zeldovich/ Optics Communications 123 (1996) 629-636 635
gram and the reconstruction of the conjugate wave
must be done by the laser radiation with the same dis-
cretely tunable wavelength. Here we make use of one
of the main advantages of our basic scheme: we do not
need to transmit coherent optical radiation from the
object to the observer. Moreover, we are not obliged to
transmit completely coherent ensemble of monochro-
matic waves from the observer to the object. The only
requirement is to deliver the stable set of fixed infen-
siry patterns I() (x, y) for the object illuminating and
to transmit the electric signal from the photodetector
back to the observers computer. That photodetector
is supposed to be mounted near to object and may be
quite miniature.
per may produce an impression (a false one, surely)
that we are suggesting to record the random patterns
I,$) (x, y) , say, inside the patients body, if the medi-
cal application are assumed. Actually, we do not mean
to do it in that way. Instead of it, we are suggesting
to memorize all those patterns I,(,:) (x, y) before the
insertion of the fiber into the closed space (into the
patients body). At first glance, in the process of that
insertion all those patterns will be altered, due to the
inevitable bends and twists of the fiber. However, we
have recently suggested and realized experimentally
the scheme of stabilization of the throughput propa-
gation function against the distorting influence of the
bends and twists. The ideas discussed in the paper may
be realized, contingent the achievement of the above
mentioned stabilization.
4. Discussion
We expect that the number of resolvable pixels cor-
responds to the number of modes guided by the fiber.
For example, if the fiber has the optical core diame-
ter about D =0.3 mm, then the angular resolution is
about 88, r A/ D =2 x lop3 rad. For the difference
An = 0.01 of the refractive indices of the optical core
and the optical cladding, the total view angle in the
air is A8 = 2vSE-L M 0.3 rad. That corresponds
to about A&,/68, zz 150 resolvable pixels in one lat-
eral direction. Two-dimensional nature of transverse
structure of the field allows to expect about 150 x 150
resolvable pixels.
The total number of pixels may be further increased,
even for the fixed core diameter D, by increasing to-
tal view angle A&. For example, An x 0.2 can be
achieved at the boundary between glass core and plas-
tic optical cladding. In this way A&i may be done
several times larger then in the above estimation, with
an order of magnitude increase of the number of re-
solvable pixels.
One of the disadvantages of the traditional meth-
ods of the multifiber endoscopy is that both the input
cross-section and the input angular apperture of each
individual fiber is very small for a thin endoscope, and
therefore quite a small fraction of diffusely scattered
light is collected by the device. This is also true for
the mono-fiber schemes with phase conjugation sug-
gested in [ l-61. Low intensity of the collected light is
especially harmful for the schemes with phase conju-
gation. This is connected with the unpleasant prop-
erty of almost any live object to move, at least a little,
in the process of observation. That motion produces
continuous phase shift and breathing of the scat-
tered complex field. Therefore the hologram registra-
tion process must be very fast. It can not be achieved
due to expectation of low level of the collected optical
signal.
Our methods are apparently free from those draw-
backs. Namely, we suggest to register the spatially-
integrated intensity of the light diffusely scattered by
the object, and to send electrical signal back to the
observers computer.
It should be reminded that in the actual use of an en-
The use of the volume holograms in the photore-
doscopic fiber the latter must be twisted and bent, and fractive crystals or in any other photosensitive media
the corresponding parameters of those deformations for the phase conjugate generation of spot-type illumi-
of the fiber inevitably vary from one case to the other.
nation has its own advantages on our scheme. Namely,
It is well known that such deformations strongly af- the most of modern applications of the holographic
fect the input-to-output Green function describing the optical memory are aimed to the absolutely errorless
light propagation through a multimode fiber. In other
words, for the given input field Ei,) (x, y) the out-
reconstruction of all the bits of the original image. It
is very difficult to achieve such a goal in the presence
put pattern Ii,: (x, y) exhibits dramatic changes under of the inevitable noise and of the unpleasant prop-
the fiber deformations. In this sense, our present pa- erty of coherent field to enhance the fluctuations due
636 MA. Bolshtyans~, B.Ya. ZeI douich/ Optics Communications 123 (19%) 629-636
to interference. On the contrary, the results presented References
in Section 3 show that even for such an unthinkable
fraction of noise as 96% (repeat: not signal, but noise
may constitute 96%) one may achieve quite a reason-
able image acquisition, see Fig 3a. By our opinion,
this type of the use of holographic memory is much
more adequate to the analog nature of an optical field.
The realization of either the random transverse to-
mography or the phase conjugate scanning methods
allows to make a device for endoscopy through a very
thin hole. The main parts of the device that transfer
video information are: a multimode fiber, a photode-
tector and two wires. They can be implemented as
one thin string with the diameter 0.3-0.5 mm and the
length about few meters. It will help get safely into
the human body or into a complicated device for diag-
nostics, when only very small size of penetrating tool
is allowed.
111
121
[ 31
[ 41
151
[ 61
171
[ 81
B.Ya. Zeldovich, N.F. Pilipetsky and V.V. Shkunov,
Principles of Phase Conjugation, monograph (Springer,
Berlin, 1985) pp. l-253.
B.Ya. Zeldovich and V.V. Shkunov, Optical Phase
Conjugation, Scientific American, December 253 ( 1985) 54.
D.M. Pepper, Application of Optical Phase Conjugation,
Scientific American, January 254 ( 1986) 37.
A. Yariv, J. Appl. Phys. Len. 28 (1975) 88.
G.J. Dunning and R.C. Lind, Optics Lett. 7 ( 1982) 558.
M. Fukui and K. Kitayama, Optics Len. 15 (1990) 971.
B.Ya. Zeldovich, A.V. Mamaev and V.V. Shkunov, Speckle-
Wave Interactions in Application to Holography and
Nonlinear Optics, monograph (CRC Press, Boca Raton,
1994) pp. l-279.
G. Rakuljich, V. Leyva and A. Yariv, Optics Lett. 17 ( 1992)
1472.