Multimode fibres for micro-endoscopy

There has been a tremendous effort in modern microscopy towards miniaturisation and fibre-based technology, driven by the need to access hostile or difficult environments in situ and in vivo. Most of these rely on reducing the size of endoscopes based on fibre-optic bundles, and systems incorporating microfabricated lenses. Recently, the use of standard multimode optical fibres for lensless microscopy has become possible mainly due to advances in holographic beam shaping. This article reviews the methods and techniques behind this progress paving theway towards minimally invasive in vivo imaging as well as other applications of multimode waveguides including on-chip integration of optical micro-manipulation and numerous other biophotonics techniques.