Patent ID: 8057083

Claim:
A fiber bundle confocal microscope or endoscope, comprising: a light source for providing a beam of light; a coherent fiber bundle of optical fibers that delivers said beam of light from said light source to a specimen and receives return light emitted by the specimen in response to illumination by said beam of light; a scanner located optically between said light source and said coherent fiber bundle for receiving said beam of light from said light source and scanning said beam of light over a proximal end of said coherent fiber bundle, so that said beam of light is launched into a plurality of said fibers sequentially, at least some of said plurality of said fibers thereby acting sequentially as instantaneous delivery fibers; a spatial filter; and a photodetector operatively associated with said spatial filter to receive said return light from one or more of said fibers; wherein said scanner receives and scans said return light following emission of said return light from said proximal end of said coherent fiber bundle, said spatial filter receives said return light from said scanner, and said spatial filter selectively excludes a component of said return light from said photodector, said component being return light transmitted by those of said instantaneous delivery fibers that are concurrently delivering said beam of light to said specimen.