Meeting Banner
Abstract #0215

A target-field shimming approach for improving the encoding performance of a lightweight Halbach magnet for portable brain MRI

Patrick C McDaniel1,2, Clarissa Zimmerman Cooley2, Jason P Stockmann2, and Lawrence L Wald2,3

1Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, United States, 2Athinoula A Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Charleston, MA, United States, 3Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, United States

Portable brain MRI scanners have the potential to increase the reach of diagnostic imaging but require relaxing constraints such as magnet homogeneity and gradient linearity or even elimination of gradient switching via a rotating magnet with built-in encoding fields. Nonetheless, the encoding matrix must retain good conditioning and excessive signal bandwidth must be controlled. To address this, we developed and validated a permanent magnet shimming method for a lightweight Halbach-style brain imaging magnet and designed and constructed a pair of compact, head-only phase encoding gradients. We demonstrate these improvements in spatial encoding with head-sized phantom and in vivo brain images.

This abstract and the presentation materials are available to members only; a login is required.

Join Here