Engineers at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee first discovered a new way to propagate multiple beams of light through a single strand of optical fiber. Now, they say that their unique fiber architecture can transmit images of comparable or better quality than commercial endoscopy imaging fibers.

In conventional optical fibers, only one spatial channel of light traverses the fiber. In order to transmit more data, the engineers used a novel method to design an optical fiber with a strong scattering mechanism that traps a beam of light as it traverses the fiber.

The fiber consists of two randomly distributed polymers, which scatter the light. The fiber's disordered interior causes a beam of light passing through it to freeze laterally, accommodating multiple beams.

The team loaded an image 30 microns into the fiber. At the other end, a lens projected an enlarged image onto a screen. The optical fiber provided a direct one-to-one image transfer, they said, with less pixelation and higher contrast.

They explained that their design guides the light everywhere, not through individual cores, so the transported image's high quality is achieved because of, not in spite of, the high level of disorder in the fiber.

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