[ED8] SQUID

3:00 PM - 3:30 PM JST(6:00 AM - 6:30 AM UTC)

[ED8-01-INV] High-T_c SQUID based low-field NMR for liver cancer and breast cancer diagnosis

*Shu-Hsien Liao¹, Yan-Cheng Chen¹, Pei-Che Wu¹, Yu-Ting Liao¹, Jhih-Hao Chen¹, Kai-Wen Huang², Herng-Er Horng¹ (1. Institute of Electro-Optical Engineering, National Taiwan Normal University (Taiwan), 2. Department of Surgery and Hepatitis Research Center, National Taiwan University Hospital (Taiwan))

Keywords:

SQUID,low-field NMR,cancer diagnosis

In this study, a compact high-T_c SQUID-detected NMR/MRI system was set up without μ-metal shielding. The field coils and SQUID were placed inside a shielded box and shielded cylinder made of aluminum to reduce the surrounding noise. For NMR and MRI measurements, we applied a three-dimensional gradient field to cancel the field inhomogeneity from the environment to obtain a narrow linewidth NMR spectrum of 0.8 Hz from a 0.5-ml water specimen. To avoid field strength variation from the environment, the time-domain frequency-adjusted average method guided by a fluxgate was used to correct the frequency variation and average the NMR signal in the time domain. The NMR/MRI system was optimized to enhance the signal-to-noise ratio of the NMR signal. MRI showed high image contrast and was performed on samples in magnetically unshielded environments. Furthermore, the applications of spin-lattice relaxation time, T₁, at low fields for sweetness detection and breast cancer discrimination were demonstrated in this study. The human specimens examined here exhibited significant differences between normal breast and breast cancer tissues. Our high-T_c SQUID-based NMR shows promise for biomedical applications.