Microfluidically Cryo-cooled Inductively Coupled Spiral Microcoils for Mr Microscopy

The development of a microfluidically cryo-cooled and inductively coupled spiral microcoil for magnetic resonance (MR) microscopy with high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) is presented. The microcoil was inductively coupled to a secondary coil that was directly coupled to a transmission line. This configuration eliminated thermal flux through direct connection when the microcoil was cryo-cooled to liquid nitrogen temperature with a microfluidic liquid nitrogen flow channel to reduce the thermal noise of the microcoil. The measured quality factor (Q) of the microcoil integrated with a parallel plate capacitor was improved by 6 times when cryo-cooling the microcoil, corresponding to an SNR enhancement of 4 fold.