title: Magnetic resonance imaging with an optical atomic magnetometer.
abstract: We report an approach for the detection of magnetic resonance imaging without superconducting magnets and cryogenics: optical atomic magnetometry. This technique possesses a high sensitivity independent of the strength of the static magnetic field, extending the applicability of magnetic resonance imaging to low magnetic fields and eliminating imaging artifacts associated with high fields. By coupling with a remote-detection scheme, thereby improving the filling factor of the sample, we obtained time-resolved flow images of water with a temporal resolution of 0.1 s and spatial resolutions of 1.6 mm perpendicular to the flow and 4.5 mm along the flow. Potentially inexpensive, compact, and mobile, our technique provides a viable alternative for MRI detection with substantially enhanced sensitivity and time resolution for various situations where traditional MRI is not optimal.
authors.affiliation: Materials Sciences Division, and Advanced Light Source, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and Department of Chemistry, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA.
authors.forename: Shoujun
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.forename: Valeriy V
authors.initials: VV
authors.lastname: Yashchuk
authors.forename: Marcus H
authors.initials: MH
authors.lastname: Donaldson
authors.forename: Simon M
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Rochester
authors.forename: Dmitry
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Budker
authors.forename: Alexander
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Pines
mesh_terms: D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods*; D008280:Magnetics; D055095:Optics and Photonics; D014867:Water / Q000737:chemistry
chemical_list: D014867:Water