Within the context of the NIH "Manufacturing Initiative" it is proposed to develop a revolutionary new manufacturing technology for image transmitting, low cost, coherent bundles of plastic optical fibers. These bundles will contain more than 100,000 fibers and be able to transmit high quality images. At present, flexible coherent bundles of optical fibers used in medical endoscopes and industrial boroscopes are all made of glass. The major specific aim in Phase I will be to manufacture a bundle containing 10,000 fibers. The feasibility of the technology will be demonstrated by showing that the polymeric bundle has a transmitted image quality similar to that of a glass bundle. An important aspect of the new technology is that it is scalable to bundles containing very large numbers of fibers. Compared to the labor intensive manufacturing technology of the present glass imaging bundles used in endoscopy, the new plastic optical fiber bundles will be very much less expensive. There is an existing $600 Million market for glass imaging bundles. The advent of a new low cost technology can reduce the cost of minimal invasive endoscopic equipment in the US and reduce the disparity of health care between the developing and the developed countries
