Inside-out NMR with two concentric ring magnets.

ABSTRACT

We report the design and the implementation of an inside-out NMR sensor that produces a large sensitive region with substantially uniform magnetic field at a remote location. The construction using a pair of ring magnets is simple yet provides multiple benefits, including large sample volume, operation with low RF power, and the ability to measure samples with long T2 and high diffusivity. A palm-size inside-out NMR sensor (57 mm OD × 29 mm height, 420 g including the housing and the coil PCB) was built with inexpensive magnets. The sweet spot is located ∼5 mm above the magnet surface with ∼4 mm width and ∼5 mm height assuming t180 = 18 µs. The field strength at that point is 0.16 T and achieved SNR ∼23 per two scans when operated with ∼10 W peak RF power. Its quasi-uniform B0 around the saddle point allows the measurement of T2 = 1.5 s with a 100 µs echo time.