Infrared hollow optical fiber probes for reflectance spectral imaging

Systems for infrared reflectance imaging are built with an FT-IR spectrometer, hollow optical fibers, and a high-speed infrared camera. To obtain reflectance images of biological samples, an optical fiber probe equipped with a light source at the distal end and a hybrid fiber probe composed of fibers for beam radiation and ones for image detection have been developed. By using these systems, reflectance spectral images of lipid painted on biomedical hard tissue, which provides reflectance of around 4%, are successfully acquired.