Highly flexible miniature endoscope made of silicone
Motivation
At present, glass fiber endoscopes are being used for optical imaging during medical examinations of small tubes, e.g. the ear canal. Unfortunately, these glass fiber endoscopes are too rigid to be inserted into the internal ear without causing any pain and may even lead to injury of the touched tissue.
Idea of implementation
In order to avoid these problems, our group is working on the realization of a flexible optical wave guide made of silicone for image detection and transmission.
A planar film carrying wave guides is being manufactured using approved microsystem techniques. This film can be furled to a bundle in the following step and mounted on a customary endoscope for further analysis, cf. fig. 1.
Fig. 1: Principle of manufactoring
