Development of Ultra-low Field SQUID-MRI System with an LC Resonator

Abstract

We are developing an Ultra-Low Field (ULF) magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) system using high temperature superconductor (HTS)-rf-superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) for food inspection. The advantage of the ULF MRI system is that non-magnetic contaminants, which are difficult to be detected by a magnetic sensor, can be detected and localized. The system uses HTS-SQUID with high sensitivity that is independent of frequency, because the signal frequency is reduced in ULF. However the detection area of HTS-SQUID is difficult to be increased. Therefore, we studied to increase the detection area using an LC resonator. The LC resonator is composed of a coil (22.9 mH, Φ40mm inner diameter) and a capacitor (the setting resonance frequency of 1890Hz). The signal is detected by a copper wound coil of the resonator, and transferred to HTS-SQUID that inductively coupled to the coil immersed in liquid nitrogen at 77K. We combined the LC resonator with the ULF MRI system, and obtained the 2D-MR images. The signal detector, with the SQUID and the LC resonator, provided a 1.5 times larger detection area. The size of 2D-MR image was near the size of the actual sample. Then we obtained 2D-MR images by a filtered back projection (FBP) method and a 2D-fast fourier transform (FFT) method. In the 2D-FFT method, the pixel size of the image was smaller than that of image by FBP method. As a result, the quality of the 2D-MR image by 2D-FFT method has been improved. There results suggested that the system we are proposing is feasible.