Where are we?
Contact:
Taner Akkin, Ph.D.
Professor
Office: 6-130 Hasselmo Hall
Phone: 612-625-8783
Email: [email protected]
What do we do?
We develop and use non-contact, non-invasive optical imaging tools to study structural and functional disorders in biological tissue with high spatiotemporal resolution.
Using phase- and polarization-sensitive interferometric techniques, we image tissue microstructure in real-time with a few micron spatial resolution and function with sub-nanometer scale optical path length resolution.
Functional recovery may be possible only when the tissue structure is intact; therefore, detecting structural changes (function) during physiological activity prior to any structural loss or permanent damage is the main thrust of our work.
Non-invasive or minimally invasive applications in medicine are possible, since the techniques use back-scattered light.
Our contributions to the field include (i) Brain imaging and mapping with serial optical coherence scanner, (ii) Depth-resolved optical imaging of neural action potentials, (iii) Integrating polarization-maintaining fiber technology into optical coherence tomography, and (iv) Differential phase sensors for ultrasensitive detection. For further information, please see the Research and Publications sections.