SQUIDs vs. Faraday coils for ultlra-low field nuclear magnetic resonance: experimental and simulation comparison
- Los Alamos National Laboratory
Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) methods are widely used in medicine, chemistry and industry. One application area is magnetic resonance imaging or MRI. Recently it has become possible to perform NMR and MRI in ultra-low field (ULF) regime that requires measurement field strengths only of the order of 1 Gauss. These techniques exploit the advantages offered by superconducting quantum interference devices or SQUIDs. Our group at LANL has built SQUID based MRI systems for brain imaging and for liquid explosives detection at airports security checkpoints. The requirement for liquid helium cooling limits potential applications of ULF MRI for liquid identification and security purposes. Our experimental comparative investigation shows that room temperature inductive magnetometers provide enough sensitivity in the 3-10 kHz range and can be used for fast liquid explosives detection based on ULF NMR/MRI technique. We describe an experimental and computer simulation comparison of the world's first multichannel SQUID based and Faraday coils based instruments that are capable of performing ULF MRI for liquids identification.
- Research Organization:
- Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC52-06NA25396
- OSTI ID:
- 1025545
- Report Number(s):
- LA-UR-10-05122; LA-UR-10-5122; TRN: US201120%%594
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: Applied Superconductivity Conference 2010 ; August 1, 2010 ; Washington, DC
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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