| Abstract: | A new fibre-optic microscope with high depth resolution is proposed and experimentally realized. In this microscope, a pair of monomode optical fibre couplers are used to form a six-port all-fibre Michelson interferometer. A lock-in amplifier is used to improve the depth sensitivity and to simplify the optical and electronic circuits. The phase sensing signal is applied to a mirror at one arm of the interferometer. The optimum resolution was about 0?4 nm. The transverse resolution of this microscope is determined by the core diameter of the monomode fibre (9 μm). This 3-D microscope is quite stable to ambient mechanical disturbances, and can be applied to the 3-D microscopy of various biological objects. |
