Gamma-Ray Optics Promises New Advances in Medicine

[TECH NEWS]

Scientists at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich and the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics in Garching have opened up a new chapter in optics: in experiments with gamma rays at the Institut Laue-Langevin (ILL) in Grenoble they have proven that these extremely high-energy electromagnetic waves can be focused by lenses like conventional light—the researchers have thus refuted a fundamental assumption of theoretical physics that had been valid for decades. Their discovery will make a great many new applications possible in medicine and materials research. Team leader Dietrich Habs is looking at concrete applications of his discovery: “Patients suffering from manic depression often take lithium medication—but nobody knows exactly how these drugs work in the brain,” says the nuclear physicist. In the future, we will be able to use gamma rays and gamma lenses to make three-dimensional images with a resolution in the micrometer range, and to look where the lithium accumulates and why it has an effect on the psyche at all.”

May 18, 2012, Max Planck Institute