Gradient RF Research Articles

Design and test result of a superconducting double-spoke cavity

Abstract Superconducting multi-spoke cavities are outstanding alternative choice for acceleration of heavy ions in medium velocity regimes. Based on the scheme of China ADS, several researches on the superconducting double-spoke cavities were done and two prototype cavities have been developed. In this paper, the RF design, the mechanical design and fabrication considerations of the bare cavity will be described in detail. After Buffered Chemical Polishing and High Pressure Rinsing, one of the prototype cavities was installed into the Vertical Test Stand for high gradient RF testing at 4.2 K. The measurement results of the quality factor as a function of the accelerating field and the maximum surface field will be presented. An accelerating gradient of more than 15 MV/m is achieved during the test, with maximum surface electric field of 58 MV/m, and maximum surface magnetic field of 117 mT.

OA018] Improved absolute metabolite quantification by localized magnetic resonance spectroscopy simulations

Purpose Magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) provides a non-invasive method for assessment of the in vivo abundance of metabolites and serves as a useful diagnostic tool for several pathologies. The most common method for quantification of metabolite abundance includes fitting a linear combination of individual a priori acquired metabolite spectra. The set of individual metabolite spectra (basis set) can either be acquired through phantom measurements or simulations. While simulation has recently become more popular, it is not clear at what complexity level the simulations have to be run. The aim of this work was to study the impact of simulation complexity on absolute concentration estimates. Specifically, results based on non-localized and localized simulations were compared. Methods The Braino phantom (General Electric) containing the most common brain metabolites was used in this study. It included choline (Cho, 3.0 mM), creatine (Cr, 10.0 mM), lactate (Lac, 5.0 mM), myoinositole (mI, 7.5 mM), glutamic acid (Glu, 12.5 mM) and N-acetylactic acid (NAA, 12.5 mM). MR spectra were acquired on a Philips Achieva 3 T scanner with the PRESS pulse sequence. Parameters: echo time 35 ms, repetition time 5000 ms, number of acquisitions 128, volume of interest size 20 × 20 × 20 mm3. Basis sets were generated in MATLAB with the same sequence timing as on the scanner both with a non-localized simulation (using ideal RF pulses) and with a localized simulation (using the actual RF pulses, gradient waveforms and phase cycling scheme as on the scanner) using full density matrix calculations. The acquired spectra were analyzed with LCModel. Metabolite concentrations were separately estimated based on the two basis sets. Results The estimated concentrations based on localized simulations were closer to true ones for all metabolites: Cho 3.6/3.5 mM, Cr 10.8/10.5 mM, Lac 3.8/5.3 mM, mI 6.5/6.9 mM, Glu 12.7/12.6 mM, NAA 13.3/13.1 mM (ideal/localized). A substantial gain in accuracy was especially seen for lactate which was underestimated by 24% with the non-localized simulation, but overestimated by only 6% by the localized simulation. Conclusions Metabolite quantification was improved by inclusion of actual RF pulses, gradient waveforms and phase cycling scheme. This was especially seen for lactate.

Preventing false discovery of heterogeneous treatment effect subgroups in randomized trials

BackgroundHeterogeneous treatment effects (HTEs), or systematic differences in treatment effectiveness among participants with different observable features, may be important when applying trial results to clinical practice. Current methods suffer from a potential for false detection of HTEs due to imbalances in covariates between candidate subgroups.MethodsWe introduce a new method, matching plus classification and regression trees (mCART), that yields balance in covariates in identified HTE subgroups. We compared mCART to a classical method (logistic regression [LR] with backwards covariate selection using the Akaike information criterion ) and two machine-learning approaches increasingly applied to HTE detection (random forest [RF] and gradient RF) in simulations with a binary outcome with known HTE subgroups. We considered an N = 200 phase II oncology trial where there were either no HTEs (1A) or two HTE subgroups (1B) and an N = 6000 phase III cardiovascular disease trial where there were either no HTEs (2A) or four HTE subgroups (2B). Additionally, we considered an N = 6000 phase III cardiovascular disease trial where there was no average treatment effect but there were four HTE subgroups (2C).ResultsIn simulations 1A and 2A (no HTEs), mCART did not identify any HTE subgroups, whereas LR found 2 and 448, RF 5 and 2, and gradient RF 5 and 24, respectively (all false positives). In simulation 1B, mCART failed to identify the two true HTE subgroups whereas LR found 4, RF 6, and gradient RF 10 (half or more of which were false positives). In simulations 2B and 2C, mCART captured the four true HTE subgroups, whereas the other methods found only false positives.All HTE subgroups identified by mCART had acceptable treated vs. control covariate balance with absolute standardized differences less than 0.2, whereas the absolute standardized differences for the other methods typically exceeded 0.2. The imbalance in covariates in identified subgroups for LR, RF, and gradient RF indicates the false HTE detection may have been due to confounding.ConclusionsCovariate imbalances may be producing false positives in subgroup analyses. mCART could be a useful tool to help prevent the false discovery of HTE subgroups in secondary analyses of randomized trial data.

RF neutron spin flippers in time of flight Spin-Echo Resolved Grazing Incidence Scattering (SERGIS)

RF coils have been routinely used for Larmor labelling on the Offspec instrument at ISIS. These coils encode directional information via the neutron polarization using a series of parallelogram-shaped pole shoes which can be tuned to different angles with an RF gradient flipper in the centre of each magnet. We report on measurements of the magnetic field integral through the coils in reflection geometry for a range of scattering angles and different pole shoe angles. Such information is mapped out by measuring the phase of the neutron polarisation and the measurements are discussed in light of data on patterned silicon gratings with a dewetted polymer and the visibility of in-plane structures to SERGIS.

High gradient RF test results of S-band and C-band cavities for medical linear accelerators

TERA Foundation has proposed and designed hadrontherapy facilities based on novel linacs, i.e. high gradient linacs which accelerate either protons or light ions. The overall length of the linac, and therefore its cost, is almost inversely proportional to the average accelerating gradient. With the scope of studying the limiting factors for high gradient operation and to optimize the linac design, TERA, in collaboration with the CLIC Structure Development Group, has conducted a series of high gradient experiments. The main goals were to study the high gradient behavior and to evaluate the maximum gradient reached in 3 and 5.7 GHz structures to direct the design of medical accelerators based on high gradient linacs. This paper summarizes the results of the high power tests of 3.0 and 5.7 GHz single-cell cavities.

Magnetic Resonance RF Pulse Design by Optimal Control With Physical Constraints.

Optimal control approaches have proved useful in designing RF pulses for large tip-angle applications. A typical challenge for optimal control design is the inclusion of constraints resulting from physiological or technical limitations that assure the realizability of the optimized pulses. In this paper, we show how to treat such inequality constraints, in particular, amplitude constraints on the B1 field, the slice-selective gradient, and its slew rate, as well as constraints on the slice profile accuracy. For the latter, a pointwise profile error and additional phase constraints are prescribed. Here, a penalization method is introduced that corresponds to a higher order tracking instead of the common quadratic tracking. The order is driven to infinity in the course of the optimization. We jointly optimize for the RF and slice-selective gradient waveform. The amplitude constraints on these control variables are treated efficiently by semismooth Newton or quasi-Newton methods. The method is flexible, adapting to many optimization goals. As an application, we reduce the power of refocusing pulses, which is important for spin echo-based applications with a short echo spacing. Here, the optimization method is tested in numerical experiments for reducing the pulse power of simultaneous multislice refocusing pulses. The results are validated by phantom and in-vivo experiments.

Correction of parallel transmission using concurrent RF and gradient field monitoring.

The accuracy and precision of the parallel RF excitations are highly dependent on the spatial and temporal fidelity of the magnetic fields involved in spin excitation. The consistency between the nominal and effective fields is typically limited by the imperfections of the employed hardware existing both in the gradient system and the RF chain. In this work, we experimentally presented highly improved spatially tailored parallel excitations by turning the native hardware accuracy challenge into a measurement and control problem using an advanced field camera technology to fully correct parallel RF transmission experiment. An array of NMR field probes is used to measure the multiple channel RF pulses and gradient waveforms recording the high power RF pulses simultaneously with low frequency gradient fields on equal time basis. The recorded waveforms were integrated in RF pulse design for gradient trajectory correction, time imperfection compensation and introduction of iterative RF pre-emphasis. Superior excitation accuracy was achieved. Two major applications were presented at 7 Tesla including multi-dimensional tailored RF pulses for spatially selective excitation and slice-selective spoke pulses for [Formula: see text] mitigation. Comprehensive field monitoring is a highly effective means of correcting for the field deviations during parallel transmit pulse design.

InSitu Observation of Dark Current Emission in a High Gradient rf Photocathode Gun.

Undesirable electron field emission (also known as dark current) in high gradient rf photocathode guns deteriorates the quality of the photoemission current and limits the operational gradient. To improve the understanding of dark current emission, a high-resolution (∼100 μm) dark current imaging experiment has been performed in an L-band photocathode gun operating at ∼100 MV/m of surface gradient. Scattered strong emission areas with high current have been observed on the cathode. The field enhancement factor β of selected regions on the cathode has been measured. The postexaminations with scanning electron microscopy and white light interferometry reveal the origins of ∼75% strong emission areas overlap with the spots where rf breakdown has occurred.

Complete multipactor suppression in an X-band dielectric-loaded accelerating structure

Multipactor is a major issue limiting the gradient of rf-driven Dielectric-Loaded Accelerating (DLA) structures. Theoretical models have predicted that an axial magnetic field applied to DLA structures may completely block the multipactor discharge. However, previous attempts to demonstrate this magnetic field effect in an X-band traveling-wave DLA structure were inconclusive, due to the axial variation of the applied magnetic field, and showed only partial suppression of the multipactor loading [Jing et al., Appl. Phys. Lett. 103, 213503 (2013)]. The present experiment has been performed under improved conditions with a uniform axial magnetic field extending along the length of an X-band standing-wave DLA structure. Multipactor loading began to be continuously reduced starting from 3.5 kG applied magnetic field and was completely suppressed at ∼8 kG. Dependence of multipactor suppression on the rf gradient inside the DLA structure was also measured.

High power tests of an electroforming cavity operating at 11.424 GHz

The achievement of ultra high accelerating gradients is mandatory in order to fabricate compact accelerators at 11.424 GHz for scientific and industrial applications. An extensive experimental and theoretical program to determine a reliable ultra high gradient operation of the future linear accelerators is under way in many laboratories. In particular, systematic studies on the 11.424 GHz frequency accelerator structures, R&D on new materials and the associated microwave technology are in progress to achieve accelerating gradients well above 120 MeV/m. Among the many, the electroforming procedure is a promising approach to manufacture high performance RF devices in order to avoid the high temperature brazing and to produce precise RF structures. We report here the characterization of a hard high gradient RF accelerating structure at 11.424 GHz fabricated using the electroforming technique. Low-level RF measurements and high power RF tests carried out at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory on this prototype are presented and discussed. In addition, we present also a possible layout where the water-cooling of irises based on the electroforming process has been considered for the first time.

Development of High-Field Permanent Magnetic Circuits for NMRI/MRI and Imaging on Mice.

The high-field permanent magnetic circuits of 1.2 T and 1.5 T with novel magnetic focusing and curved-surface correction are developed. The permanent magnetic circuit comprises a magnetic yoke, main magnetic steel, nonspherical curved-surface magnetic poles, plugging magnetic steel, and side magnetic steel. In this work, a novel shimming method is proposed for the effective correction of base magnetic field (B 0) inhomogeneities, which is based on passive shimming on the telescope aspheric cutting, grinding, and fine processing technology of the nonspherical curved-surface magnetic poles and active shimming adding higher-order gradient coils. Meanwhile, the magnetic resonance imaging dedicated alloy with high-saturation magnetic field induction intensity and high electrical resistivity is developed, and nonspherical curved-surface magnetic poles which are made of the dedicated alloy have very good anti-eddy-current effect. In addition, the large temperature coefficient problem of permanent magnet can be effectively controlled by using a high quality temperature controller and deuterium external locking technique. Combining our patents such as gradient coil, RF coil, and integration computer software, two kinds of small animal Micro-MRI instruments are developed, by which the high quality MRI images of mice were obtained.

New technology based on clamping for high gradient radio frequency photogun

High gradient rf photoguns have been a key development to enable several applications of high quality electron beams. They allow the generation of beams with very high peak current and low transverse emittance, satisfying the tight demands for free-electron lasers, energy recovery linacs, Compton/Thomson sources and high-energy linear colliders. In the present paper we present the design of a new rf photogun recently developed in the framework of the SPARC_LAB photoinjector activities at the laboratories of the National Institute of Nuclear Physics in Frascati (LNF-INFN, Italy). This design implements several new features from the electromagnetic point of view and, more important, a novel technology for its realization that does not involve any brazing process. From the electromagnetic point of view the gun presents high mode separation, low peak surface electric field at the iris and minimized pulsed heating on the coupler. For the realization, we have implemented a novel fabrication design that, avoiding brazing, strongly reduces the cost, the realization time and the risk of failure. Details on the electromagnetic design, low power rf measurements and high power radiofrequency and beam tests performed at the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA) are discussed in the paper.

Concurrent recording of RF pulses and gradient fields - comprehensive field monitoring for MRI.

Reconstruction of MRI data is based on exact knowledge of all magnetic field dynamics, since the interplay of RF and gradient pulses generates the signal, defines the contrast and forms the basis of resolution in spatial and spectral dimensions. Deviations caused by various sources, such as system imperfections, delays, eddy currents, drifts or externally induced fields, can therefore critically limit the accuracy of MRI examinations. This is true especially at ultra-high fields, because many error terms scale with the main field strength, and higher available SNR renders even smaller errors relevant. Higher baseline field also often requires higher acquisition bandwidths and faster signal encoding, increasing hardware demands and the severity of many types of hardware imperfection. To address field imperfections comprehensively, in this work we propose to expand the concept of magnetic field monitoring to also encompass the recording of RF fields. In this way, all dynamic magnetic fields relevant for spin evolution are covered, including low- to audio-frequency magnetic fields as produced by main magnets, gradients and shim systems, as well as RF pulses generated with single- and multiple-channel transmission systems. The proposed approach permits field measurements concurrently with actual MRI procedures on a strict common time base. The combined measurement is achieved with an array of miniaturized field probes that measure low- to audio-frequency fields via (19) F NMR and simultaneously pick up RF pulses in the MRI system's (1) H transmit band. Field recordings can form the basis of system calibration, retrospective correction of imaging data or closed-loop feedback correction, all of which hold potential to render MRI more robust and relax hardware requirements. The proposed approach is demonstrated for a range of imaging methods performed on a 7 T human MRI system, including accelerated multiple-channel RF pulses. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Influence of space-charge fields on the cooling process of muon beams

In this study, obtaining muon beams with high-density in 6D phase-space is essential for realization of muon colliders, neutrino factories based on accelerated muons beams and other experiments involving muons. While several schemes to compress the beam phase-space by means of muon cooling having been proposed, very little is known about the impact of particle-particle interactions in the whole design. In this paper, we examine the influence of space-change fields on the cooling process of muon beams. We show that the cooling efficiency decreases with the degree of intensity, leading to emittance growth and particle loss for beams with large intensities. We further show that the emittance growth is only longitudinal and present a space-charge compensation solution by means of increasing the rf gradient. With the aid of numerical simulations, we obtain a quantitative relationship between the required compensation gradient and bunch charge and compare our results to earlier theoretical findings.

Prospective motion correction of 3D echo-planar imaging data for functional MRI using optical tracking

We evaluated the performance of an optical camera based prospective motion correction (PMC) system in improving the quality of 3D echo-planar imaging functional MRI data. An optical camera and external marker were used to dynamically track the head movement of subjects during fMRI scanning. PMC was performed by using the motion information to dynamically update the sequence's RF excitation and gradient waveforms such that the field-of-view was realigned to match the subject's head movement. Task-free fMRI experiments on five healthy volunteers followed a 2×2×3 factorial design with the following factors: PMC on or off; 3.0mm or 1.5mm isotropic resolution; and no, slow, or fast head movements. Visual and motor fMRI experiments were additionally performed on one of the volunteers at 1.5mm resolution comparing PMC on vs PMC off for no and slow head movements. Metrics were developed to quantify the amount of motion as it occurred relative to k-space data acquisition. The motion quantification metric collapsed the very rich camera tracking data into one scalar value for each image volume that was strongly predictive of motion-induced artifacts. The PMC system did not introduce extraneous artifacts for the no motion conditions and improved the time series temporal signal-to-noise by 30% to 40% for all combinations of low/high resolution and slow/fast head movement relative to the standard acquisition with no prospective correction. The numbers of activated voxels (p<0.001, uncorrected) in both task-based experiments were comparable for the no motion cases and increased by 78% and 330%, respectively, for PMC on versus PMC off in the slow motion cases. The PMC system is a robust solution to decrease the motion sensitivity of multi-shot 3D EPI sequences and thereby overcome one of the main roadblocks to their widespread use in fMRI studies.

RF Cavity Induced Sensitivity Limitations on Beam Loss Monitors

Due to the secondary showers generated when a particle hits the vacuum chamber, beam losses at an accelerator may be detected via radiation detectors located near the beam line. Several sources of background can limit the sensitivity and reduce the dynamic range of a Beam Loss Monitor (BLM). This document concentrates on potential sources of background generated near high gradient RF cavities due to dark current and voltage breakdowns. An optical fibre has been installed at an experiment of the Compact Linear Collider (CLIC) Test Facility (CTF3), where a dedicated study of the performance of a loaded and unloaded CLIC accelerating structure is undergoing. An analysis of the collected data and a benchmarking simulation are presented to estimate BLM sensitivity limitations. Moreover, the feasibility for the use of BLMs optimised for the diagnostics of RF cavities is discussed.

Simulation and Correction of the Slice Profile Based on SLR Theory in a 0.35 T Permanent MRI System

To locate the imaging slice, the hydrogen protons within the selected slice are excited by the coaction of radio-frequency pulse (RF pulse) and slice-selection gradient during the process of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). However, the absolute consistency of the time between the RF transmitting system and gradient system can’t be guaranteed in an actual magnetic resonance system, which makes the slice profile not ideal enough. Imperfect slice profile will lead to poor imaging quality. In this paper, Shinnar-Le Roux (SLR) theory is used to simulate the slice profile with different relative delays between RF and slice-selection gradient to solve this problem. By matching the actual slice profile with the simulation results, the relative delay is measured in an actual 0.35T permanent magnet MRI system. The practicability of the method is verified for the improvement of image quality after applying the measured delay to correct the actual MRI system.

Enhancing the performance of accelerated MRI through preservation of acquisition SNR: An "aliased" k-space approach.

A method for preserving acquisition SNR through simultaneous acquisitions of distinct k-space phase encodes to enhance the performance of accelerated MRI is presented. An excitation module comprising RF pulses and gradients is inserted into a sequence of choice to overlap and acquire distinct k-space phase encodes. This accelerates a scan as all phase encodes can now be acquired in a duration shorter than that of a typical scan. Next, this "aliased k-space" is restored during reconstruction using receiver sensitivity profiles. When the aliased k-space is also sub-sampled for additional acceleration, Parallel Imaging (PMRI) is applied first to synthesize the unacquired aliased samples. The synthesized samples are then used with the acquired samples in an iterative reconstruction to obtain the output. Depending on the sequence, acquisition SNR increased by 18-25% relative to PMRI or by 5% relative to the unaccelerated scan. This compensates for the SNR loss when the aliased k-space is sub-sampled for additional acceleration. With PMRI, the method could enable acceleration factors as high as 12 in 2D cartesian scans. A method for accelerating MRI scans through aliased k-space acquisitions and the feasibility of combining the same with PMRI for greater acceleration has been demonstrated. Magn Reson Med 74:150-161, 2015. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Lipid suppression for brain MRI and MRSI by means of a dedicated crusher coil.

Lipid suppression in MR brain imaging and spectroscopy has been a long-standing problem for which various techniques have been developed. Most methods are based on inversion recovery or spatially or spectrally selective excitation of the lipid signal followed by dephasing. All techniques require additional RF pulses, gradient crushers and delays, which increase the duration and complexity of sequences. In addition, the lipid signal is poorly shimmed, and is composed of different resonance frequencies that have different relaxation properties. In this work, a novel approach for suppression of extra cranial lipids is presented, by means of an outer volume crusher coil. It is based on the principle of surface spoiling gradients, which generate a very local and inhomogeneous magnetic field in the outer layer of the head, and thereby destroys the phase coherence of the extra cranial signals. Dephasing of the signal can be incorporated in almost any sequence because it requires only a short pulse of the coil, and does not require additional RF pulses or delays. Examples of lipid suppression are shown in both gradient echo imaging and spectroscopic imaging. Outer volume crushing allows for simple fat suppression and boosts scanning efficiency, which is particularly beneficial at ultra-high field strengths.

Development of a high gradient rf system using a nanocrystalline soft magnetic alloy

The future high intensity upgrade project of the J-PARC (Japan Proton Accelerator Research Complex) MR (Main Ring) includes developments of high gradient rf cavities and magnet power supplies for high repetition rate. The scenario describing the cavity replacements is reported. By the replacement plan, the total acceleration voltage will be almost doubled, while the number of rf stations remains the same. The key issue is the development of a high gradient rf system using high impedance magnetic alloy, FT3L. The FT3L is produced by the transverse magnetic field annealing although the present cavity for the J-PARC adopts the magnetic alloy, FT3M, which is annealed without magnetic field. After the test production using a large spectrometer magnet in 2011, a dedicated production system for the FT3L cores was assembled in 2012. This setup demonstrated that we can produce material with 2 times higher ${\ensuremath{\mu}}_{p}^{\ensuremath{'}}\mathrm{Qf}$ product compared to the cores used for present cavities. In this summer, the production system was moved to the company from J-PARC and is used for mass production of 280 FT3L cores for the J-PARC MR. The cores produced in the first test production are already used for standard machine operation. The operation experience shows that the power loss in the cores was reduced significantly as expected.