Normal conducting transfer coil for SQUID NDE

Abstract

We have investigated the performance of a normal conducting transfer coil (n-coil) for nondestructive evaluation with a SQUID. The transfer efficiency, which depends on frequency and wire impedance, has been calculated for several coil designs to determine the performance of the n-coil. We have fabricated a 30 mm diameter n-coil and examined its performance with a high-TC SQUID. If both the pick-up coil and the input coil have 50 turns, then at high frequencies the magnetic field produced by the input coil becomes 50% of the magnetic field at the pick-up coil, with a low cut-off frequency of 2 kHz. The experimental result agrees well with a numerical calculation, which suggests a magnitude of magnetic field detected by our SQUID equal to the magnitude of the quasi-uniform magnetic field produced by the input coil. We also confirmed that the thermal noise of the n-coil, produced by its normal resistance, does not become higher than the intrinsic magnetic field noise of the SQUID.