Researchers at the University of Michigan have detected microscopic twists in the internal structure of plant and animal tissue without using potentially harmful X-rays.
The approach involves rotating terahertz radiation in real time, and is said to be the first successful implementation of this approach, potentially opening up new applications in medical imaging, encrypted communications and cosmology. The work was reported in Nature Materials.
“Our bodies have a lot of twisted structures that are close enough to the surface for terahertz photons to penetrate: vessels, ligaments, muscle fibers, molecules and even some helical bacteria,” said Nicholas Kotov of the University of Michigan.