Use of high temperature superconductor in a receiver coil for magnetic resonance imaging

Abstract

A planar YBa2Cu3Ox (YBCO) coil has been used as a pick-up coil in a nuclear magnetic resonance imager. It was found that the quality factor (Q) of the YBCO coil was greater than its copper counterpart by approaching 50% even in a field of 0.15 T. The Q of the copper coil at 77 K and in a field of 0.15 T was 1200 while that of the YBCO coil under identical conditions was 1700.