Systematic Analysis of the Improvements in Magnetic Resonance Microscopy with Ferroelectric Composite Ceramics.

Moussu, Marine A C; Ciobanu, Luisa; Kurdjumov, Sergej; Nenasheva, Elizaveta; Djemai, Boucif; Dubois, Marc; Webb, Andrew G; Enoch, Stefan et al. · Adv Mater · 2019

basic_science · Level V

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Abstract

The spatial resolution and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) attainable in magnetic resonance microscopy (MRM) are limited by intrinsic probe losses and probe-sample interactions. In this work, the possibility to exceed the SNR of a standard solenoid coil by more than a factor-of-two is demonstrated theoretically and experimentally. This improvement is achieved by exciting the first transverse electric mode of a low-loss ceramic resonator instead of using the quasi-static field of the metal-wire solenoid coil. Based on theoretical considerations, a new probe for microscopy at 17 T is developed as a dielectric ring resonator made of ferroelectric/dielectric low-loss composite ceramics precisely tunable via temperature control. Besides the twofold increase in SNR, compared with the solenoid probe, the proposed ceramic probe does not cause static-field inhomogeneity and related image distortion.