Spectrally encoded flow cytometry using few-mode fiber collection

In fiber-based confocal microscopy, using two separate fibers for illumination and collection enables the use of a few-mode fiber to achieve an effect similar to opening the pinhole in a conventional confocal microscope. In some Fourier-domain applications, however, or when a spectral measurement is involved, the coherent light detection would lead to noticeable spectral modulation artifacts that result from differential mode delay, an effect caused by the multimode propagation in the collection fiber. After eliminating these artifacts by using mode-dependent polarization control, we demonstrate effective spectrally encoded imaging with improved signal efficiency and lower speckle noise, and only a minor, negligible reduction in lateral and axial resolutions.