Study of 600 MHz NMR microscopy and its application to many subjects

Abstract

We obtained a 1㎛ resolution NMR microscopy image for a silicon artificial microstructure filled with silicon oil within 8 hours at 14.1 T. The silicon structure was designed and fabricated to demonstrate the obtainable high resolution. The home built probe was made to give 1000 G/cm gradient field strength and a high sensitivity rf coil circuit was designed inside the probe. In this paper, we will investigate the factors and barriers in achieving 1㎛ resolution image and verify its resolution based on its factors. In order to achieve high resolution image, relevant liquid having low diffusion coefficient and T1, in our case, the silicon oil, was used. Pulse sequence was designed in consideration of bandwidth, diffusion coefficients, $T_1$, $T_2$ relaxation of the medium. We have also applied our home built probe to image biological animals such as earthworms in micrometer orders and verified its resolution. This can be an important achievement since vivo cellular imaging would be possible on this scale.