In-fiber beam scanning

A method, comprising:

• providing a beam from an input fiber to an in-fiber beam shifter,
• wherein the in-fiber beam shifter comprises a first multibend beam shifter coupled to the input fiber, a graded index fiber following the first multibend beam shifter, and a second multibend beam shifter following the graded index fiber and coupling into a feeding fiber, and
• wherein the feeding fiber comprises an imaging bundle with multiple cores embedded in a first cladding that is surrounded by a second cladding;
• actuating the first multibend beam shifter by a first amount to shift the beam along a first spatial axis;
• and
• actuating the second multibend beam shifter by a second amount to shift the beam along a second spatial axis,
• wherein the first multibend beam shifter and the second multibend beam shifter are actuated to control Cartesian coordinates representing a position of the beam in two dimensions and to deliver the beam into one or more target cores in the imaging bundle.

An optical assembly, comprising:

• an input fiber to provide a beam;
• a feeding fiber comprising multiple cores that are arranged in an array and embedded in a first cladding that is surrounded by a second cladding;
• and
• an in-fiber beam shifter that comprises a multibend beam shifter and a graded index fiber coupled between the input fiber and the feeding fiber,
• wherein the multibend beam shifter is actuated to apply, in the graded index fiber, a set of bends to shift the beam in a spatial dimension and deliver the beam into one or more target cores in the array.