title: Comparisons between the 35 mm quadrature surface resonator at 300 K and the 40 mm high-temperature superconducting surface resonator at 77 K in a 3T MRI imager.
abstract: This study attempts to compare the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the 40 mm High-Temperature Superconducting (HTS) surface resonator at 77 K and the 35 mm commercial quadrature (QD) surface resonator at 300 K in a 3 Tesla (T) MRI imager. To aquire images for the comparison, we implemented a phantom experiment using the 40 mm diameter Bi2Sr2Ca2Cu3Ox (Bi-2223) HTS surface resonator, the 35 mm commercial QD surface resonator and the 40 mm professionally-made copper surface resonator. The HTS surface resonator at 77 K provided a 1.43-fold SNR gain over the QD surface resonator at 300 K and provided a 3.84-fold SNR gain over the professionally-made copper surface resonator at 300 K on phantom images. The results agree with the predictions, and the difference between the predicted SNR gains and measured SNR gains is 1%. Although the geometry of the HTS surface resonator is different from the QD surface resonator, its SNR is still higher. The results demonstrate that a higher image quality can be obtained with the HTS surface resonator at 77 K. With the HTS surface resonator, the SNR can be improved, suggesting that the HTS surface resonator is a potentially helpful diagnostic tool for MRI imaging in various applications.
authors: State Key Laboratory of Molecular Vaccinology and Molecular Diagnostics, School of Public Health, Xiamen University, Xiamen Fujian, China; Center for Molecular Imaging and Translational Medicine, School of Public Health, Xiamen University, Xiamen Fujian, China.
authors: Manli
authors: M
authors: Song
authors: Interdisciplinary MRI/MRS Lab, Department of Electrical Engineering, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan; Graduate Institute of Biomedical Electronics and Bioinformatics, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan.
authors: Jyh-Horng
authors: JH
authors: Chen
authors: Department of Physiology and Neurobiology, Medical College of Xiamen University, Xiamen Fujian, China.
authors: Ji
authors: J
authors: Chen
authors: State Key Laboratory of Molecular Vaccinology and Molecular Diagnostics, School of Public Health, Xiamen University, Xiamen Fujian, China; Center for Molecular Imaging and Translational Medicine, School of Public Health, Xiamen University, Xiamen Fujian, China.
authors: In-Tsang
authors: IT
authors: Lin
mesh_terms: D004867:Equipment Design; D007089:Image Enhancement; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*; D019047:Phantoms, Imaging; D059629:Signal-To-Noise Ratio; D013696:Temperature