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Endoscopes have been utilize in the medical field to observe the internals of the human body to assist the diagnosis of
diseases, such as breathing disorders, internal bleeding, stomach ulcers, and urinary tract infections. Endoscopy is also
utilized in the procedure of biopsy for the diagnosis of cancer. Conventional endoscopes suffer from the compromise
between overall size and image quality due to the required size of the sensor for acceptable image quality. To overcome
the size constraint while maintaining the capture image quality, we propose an electro-optic beam steering device based
on thermal-plastic polymer, which has a small foot-print (~5mmx5mm), and can be easily fabricated using conventional
hot-embossing and micro-fabrication techniques. The proposed device can be implemented as an imaging device inside
endoscopes to allow reduction in the overall system size. In our previous work, a single prism design has been used to
amplify the deflection generated by the index change of the thermal-plastic polymer when a voltage is applied; it yields a
result of 5.6° deflection. To further amplify the deflection, a new design utilizing a cascading three-prism array has been
implemented and a deflection angle to 29.2° is observed. The new design amplifies the beam deflection, while keeping
the advantage of simple fabrication made possible by thermal-plastic polymer. Also, a photo-resist based collimator lens
array has been added to reduce and provide collimation of the beam for high quality imaging purposes. The collimator is
able to collimate the exiting beam at 4 μm diameter for up to 25mm, which potentially allows high resolution image
capturing.
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