Polarimetry is emerging as a promising, minimally invasive diagnostics tool.
The interaction of polarized light with matter often reveals features that are invisible to ordinary imaging techniques / diffuse optics. We have developed a versatile polarimetric microscope, that can measure with high speed cross- and auto-correlations
between arbitrarily polarized incident and backscattered light. This microscope has undegone a rigorous calibration process by performing measurements on well-characterized colloidal suspensions and comparing the results with Monte Carlo simulations.
Long term goals include differentiating tumorous from healthy tissues (in collaboration with the Neurosurgical Institute of the Inselspital Bern), diagnosing the severeness of burn injuries, as well as studying the fundamentals of polarized light propagation in random media, whereby more theoretical work is carried out.
