Raman imaging through a single multimode fibre

Vibrational spectroscopy is a widespread, powerful method of recording the molecular spectra of constituent molecules within a sample in a label-free manner. As an example, Raman spectroscopy has major applications in materials science, biomedical analysis and clinical studies. The need to access deep tissues and organs in vivo has triggered major advances in fibre Raman probes that are compatible with endoscopic settings. However, imaging in confined geometries still remains out of reach for the current state of art fibre Raman systems without compromising the compactness and flexibility. Here we demonstrate Raman spectroscopic imaging via complex correction in single multimode fibre without using any additional optics and filters in the probe design. Our approach retains the information content typical to traditional fibre bundle imaging, yet within an ultra-thin footprint of diameter 125 μm which is the thinnest Raman imaging probe realised to date. We are able to acquire Raman images, including for bacteria samples, with fields of view exceeding 200 μm in diameter.