Abstract: A confocal optical scanning system using a flexible optical emissive fiber or fiber laser and having a lasing cavity defined within the fiber. The system in-couples a signal beam produced when a probe beam generated by the fiber laser is reflected from a scanned object back into the lasing cavity. The perturbation created in the cavity by the in-coupling of the signal beam is detected by a transducer. Specifically, the perturbation may be the signal beam itself, an oscillation mode of the cavity induced by the in-coupled signal beam or a combination of the signal beam and the probe beam. In a preferred embodiment of the invention the system also has a polarizing assembly for altering a signal polarization of the signal beam and rotate it to either a resonant polarization supported by the cavity or a non-resonant polarization not supported by the cavity.