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Flow in porous metallic materials: A magnetic resonance imaging study
Author(s) -
Xu Shoujun,
Harel Elad,
Michalak David J.,
Crawford Charles W.,
Budker Dmitry,
Pines Alexander
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
journal of magnetic resonance imaging
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.563
H-Index - 160
eISSN - 1522-2586
pISSN - 1053-1807
DOI - 10.1002/jmri.21532
Subject(s) - magnetic resonance imaging , materials science , laser , porous medium , porosity , magnetic field , magnetometer , nuclear magnetic resonance , detector , biomedical engineering , cylinder , optics , radiology , physics , composite material , medicine , mechanical engineering , quantum mechanics , engineering
Purpose To visualize flow dynamics of analytes inside porous metallic materials with laser‐detected magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Materials and Methods We examine the flow of nuclear‐polarized water in a porous stainless steel cylinder. Laser‐detected MRI utilizes a sensitive optical atomic magnetometer as the detector. Imaging was performed in a remote‐detection mode: the encoding was conducted in the Earth's magnetic field, and detection is conducted downstream of the encoding location. Conventional MRI (7T) was also performed for comparison. Results Laser‐detected MRI clearly showed MR images of water flowing through the sample, whereas conventional MRI provided no image. Conclusion We demonstrated the viability of laser‐detected MRI at low‐field for studying porous metallic materials, extending MRI techniques to a new group of systems that is normally not accessible to conventional MRI. J. Magn. Reson. Imaging 2008;28:1299–1302. © 2008 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.