4 ms·

The resolution of MRI/NMR is more limited by pulse sequence design and magnetic gradient control. The cryogenics built into the scanner don't contribute meaning

The resolution of MRI/NMR is more limited by pulse sequence design and magnetic gradient control. The cryogenics built into the scanner don't contribute meaningfully to those. Instead, you'd gain a huge amount of portability and/or a huge reduction in cost/complexity. You can't spell cryogenics without "cry", and being able to sustain a large field without needing cryocoolers or a wet system would lead to impossible-to-imagine gains. Medical/industrial imaging, maglev (for sure), even fundamental physics would hugely benefit from the tech.

valine 4y ago
What about magnetic confinement fusion? My understanding was that tokamaks use superconductors to produce their magnetic fields. Does a low temperature superconductor help with that?
fabian2k 4y ago
For NMR the resolution depends directly on the strength of the magnetic field, so if those superconductors allow higher magnetic fields they also increase resolution. See e.g. the new Bruker 1.2 GHz NMR spectrometer which uses some high-temperature superconductors while the spectrometers with conventional superconductors could not get higher than 1 GHz. There are other effects at higher fields that are not necessarily positive, so just cranking up the field has limits. But in general higher fields provide more resolution and sensitivity in NMR, and it's quite a big increase.
- MengerSponge 4y ago
  Oh, that's an important correction! If this magical superconductor has a higher critical current density than current tech, then a larger field would be possible. Also, the new Bruker systems run at 28.2 T, which is a mind-bogglingly large field. This badly structured headline made got a real double take out of me too: https://www.bruker.com/en/news-and-events/news/2022/bruker-announces-three-ghz-nmr-system-orders.html https://www.bruker.com/en/news-and-events/news/2022/bruker-a... 3GHz is a lot

valine 4y ago

What about magnetic confinement fusion? My understanding was that tokamaks use superconductors to produce their magnetic fields. Does a low temperature superconductor help with that?

fabian2k 4y ago

For NMR the resolution depends directly on the strength of the magnetic field, so if those superconductors allow higher magnetic fields they also increase resolution. See e.g. the new Bruker 1.2 GHz NMR spectrometer which uses some high-temperature superconductors while the spectrometers with conventional superconductors could not get higher than 1 GHz. There are other effects at higher fields that are not necessarily positive, so just cranking up the field has limits. But in general higher fields provide more resolution and sensitivity in NMR, and it's quite a big increase.

MengerSponge 4y ago
Oh, that's an important correction! If this magical superconductor has a higher critical current density than current tech, then a larger field would be possible. Also, the new Bruker systems run at 28.2 T, which is a mind-bogglingly large field. This badly structured headline made got a real double take out of me too: https://www.bruker.com/en/news-and-events/news/2022/bruker-announces-three-ghz-nmr-system-orders.html https://www.bruker.com/en/news-and-events/news/2022/bruker-a... 3GHz is a lot