World's smallest camera is so small it travels around your bloodstream scanning you from the inside

By Matthew Griffin Industrial Revolution 27th July 2020

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF

Big tech companies watch you from the outside, now they can watch you from the inside, literally. And it also has medical applications …

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Cameras are getting smaller every day it seems, like this one that has sharper focus than an Eagle and is smaller than the width of a human hair, and they’re also getting more powerful – so powerful that new Terahertz cameras can scan the inside of your body from the outside! And who knows, maybe while it’s scanning your insides it’ll find the world’s tiniest house … Now though an Australian-German team have announced they’ve developed the world’s smallest imaging device that’s no larger than the thickness of a human hair that can scan you from the inside too. They also announced that it’s capable of traveling down the blood vessels of mice, offering unprecedented abilities to 3D scan the body at microscopic resolutions.

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In order to build their miniature endoscope the team took a fine optical fiber with a diameter of less than half a millimeter (0.02 in), including its protective sheath. The researchers then used a 3D micro-printing technique to print a minuscule side-facing lens into it with a diameter less than 0.13 mm (0.005 in) – too small to be seen with the naked eye.

This optical fiber was then connected to an Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) scanner as a flexible probe. OCT is a 3D depth sensitive scanning technology that’s commonly used to map the retina in optometry and ophthalmology which uses near-infrared light to penetrate into tissue, measuring the wave interference between a reference beam and a probe beam to build up live 3D images that can look through surfaces within the body into the structures beneath at microscopic resolutions.

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With this breakthrough, the team has built an OCT scanning device small enough to be pushed through blood vessels in the body. This ultra-thin probe can be rotated and slowly pulled backwards to build up a 3D map of its surroundings to a depth around half a millimeter below the surface. It offers unprecedented abilities to scan the vascular system of the body for the plaques, made up of fats, cholesterol and other substances, that tend to build up in blood vessel walls and lead to heart disease.

The team performed successful tests of the device in both human and mouse blood vessels, demonstrating its ability to deliver quality OCT images and the flexibility to get where it needs to go in the body. Its precisely printed lens allows the scanner to image depths five times deeper than previous attempts, and the researchers believe this tiny probe could open up new scanning options in hard-to-reach places like the cochlea of the ear and potentially even parts of the nervous system.

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The team comprised medical clinicians and engineers from the University of Adelaide and the University of Stuttgart.

The study is available in the journal Light Science & Applications.

Source: University of Adelaide

Matthew Griffin / About Author

Described by NASA as a "Walking Encyclopaedia of the Future" and one of the world’s most in demand keynote speakers Matthew Griffin, Founder and Futurist in Chief of the 311 Institute, a global Futures and Deep Futures advisory firm, is a multi-award winning Futurist and strategic foresight expert, author, lecturer, mentor, podcast and YouTube host.

With a distinguished career running global business units at Atos, EMC, and IBM today Matthew helps leaders and titans of industry from all over the world explore the impact of the inter sections of technology, culture, and leadership, then helps them create high performance organisations that can continuously disrupt, outpace, and outthink their competition.

15 times author of the hit series the Codex of the Future series Matthew's ability to identify, track, and explain the impacts of hundreds of emerging technologies and trends on global business, culture, and society has earned him a powerful reputation and a roster of clients that include royal households, world leaders across the G7, G20, and G77, and many of the world's most recognised and exceptional organisations including ABB, Accenture, ABN Amro, Adidas, AON, ARM, BCG, Centrica, Citi Group, Coca Cola, Deloitte, Dentons, Disney, Dow, EY, Google, KPMG, Lego, Microsoft, Legal & General, LinkedIn, Nokia, Paramount, PepsiCo, PWC, Qualcomm, RWE, Samsung, T-Mobile, UBS, Visa, WIRED, WPP and hundreds of others.

Matthew is regularly featured in the global media including the AP, BBC, Bloomberg, CNBC, Discovery, Forbes, Khaleej Times, Telegraph, TIME, ViacomCBS, WIRED, and the WSJ, and his mission is to help organisations create a fair and sustainable future whose benefits are shared by everyone irrespective of their ability, background, or circumstances.