Endoscope having transparent resin sealing layer

Abstract

The endoscope of the invention has a very fine insertion section which is capable of being inserted into, for example, a blood vessel. The insertion section has at its outer periphery a thin-walled hollow cylindrical sheath, one end of which has an opening to the outside. The sheath contains a light guide fiber bundle for emitting a beam of illumination light into the blood vessel, an object lens group for receiving a beam reflected from the blood vessel, in order to form an image, and an image guide fiber bundle for transmitting the image formed. In addition, the sheath has at one end thereof a recess portion having a side wall defined by the sheath, a bottom wall defined by the light guide fiber bundle, and an opening to the outside. A transparent resin layer of a uniform thickness is arranged within the recess portion, and seals the inside of the sheath at one end, one end face of the resin layer being substantially flush with the one end of the sheath.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.