Matteo Pavan1, Susanne Heinzer - Schweizer1, Nicola De Zanche1,2, Anke Henning1, Peter Boesiger1, Klaas Paul Pruessmann1
1Institute for Biomedical Engineering, University and ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland; 2Department of Medical Physics, Cross Cancer Institute and University of Alberta, Canada
We present an optical link used to transmit a reference signal in spectroscopy (ERETIC method). The optical link has the peculiarity to be safety and inexpensive since it is made of only a low noise preamplifier, a high speed LED, polymer optical fiber and a photodiode. The reference signal is generated outside the MR room, it travels along the optical fiber, enters the scanner rooms Faraday shield through a waveguide and is injected into a birdcage coil by inductive coupling. The link is shown to be reliable and stable over time consenting so, good fidelity quantitative measurements of metabolite concentrations.