Nuclear magnetic resonance probe coil

• US 5,565,778 A
• Filed: 06/05/1995
• Issued: 10/15/1996
• Est. Priority Date: 06/01/1992
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Agilent Technologies, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Conductus Inc. (Clearday, Inc.)
• Inventors: Wong, Wai H., Fuks, Luiz F., Withers, Richard S., Anderson, Weston A., Brey, William W., Kotsubo, Vincent Y.
• Primary Examiner(s): Arana, Louis M.
• Application Number:
  US08/461,559
• Time in Patent Office: 498 Days
• Field of Search: 324/318, 324/321, 324/322, 29/829, 29/846, 29/847, 505/192, 505/202, 505/220, 505/329, 505/844
• US Class Current: 324/318
• CPC Class Codes: G01R 33/34 Constructional details, e.g. resonators , specially adapted to MR
• CPC Class Codes: G01R 33/34007 Manufacture of RF coils, e.g. using printed circuit board technology; additional hardware for providing mechanical support to the RF coil assembly or to part thereof, e.g. a support for moving the coil assembly relative to the remainder of the MR system
• CPC Class Codes: G01R 33/34023 Superconducting RF coils
• CPC Class Codes: G01R 33/34092 RF coils specially adapted for NMR spectrometers
• CPC Class Codes: G01R 33/3628 Tuning/matching of the transmit/receive coil
• CPC Class Codes: G01R 33/5604 Microscopy; Zooming
• CPC Class Codes: H01G 4/40 Structural combinations of fixed capacitors with other electric elements, the structure mainly consisting of a capacitor, e.g. RC combinations

Abstract

A resonant coil for nuclear magnetic spectroscopy and microscopy is provided, in which the coil is in the form of nested, interrupted loops of a conductive material forming a distributed inductive element and having a plurality of capacitive elements with capacitance distributed over the periphery of the loops. The coil is preferably formed as a thin film of a superconductive material on an electrically nonconductive substrate.

Claims

1. An RF coil comprising:

(a) a planar dielectric substrate;

(b) a thin film of conductive material deposited on the substrate, the conductive material forming a plurality of nested loops in essentially a single plane;

each of the loops being interrupted by a nonconductive area defining a gap;

adjacent loops being so nested that the gap of any one loop is not proximately disposed to the gap of an adjacent loop;

each loop having a first finger and a second finger, a finger being defined by a portion of the loop disposed between adjacent gaps of the coil;

whereby the loops form an inductive element and the first finger of one loop forms a capacitive element with an adjacent finger of another loop.

2. The coil of claim 1 wherein the conductive material is a superconductor.

3. The coil of claim 2 wherein the superconductor is a high temperature superconductor.

4. The coil of claim 1 wherein each loop includes a plurality of symmetrically positioned nonconductive areas.

5. The coil of claim 4, further comprising a conductive material connecting the fingers of the capacitive element.

6. The coil of claim 1 further comprising a plurality of non-adjacent, nested loops wherein the gap of each of the non-adjacent loops is aligned with the gap of a non-adjacent loop to form with the adjacent loop a single capacitive element comprising a plurality of fingers.

7. The coil of claim 1 wherein the loop comprises a segment of curved conductive material.