Research and Development of the High Stable Magnetic Field ReBCO Coil System Fundamental Technology for MRI
The superconducting magnet is effective to get a high stable and high magnetic field for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The current MRI superconducting magnet needed cooling in the liquid helium (4.2 K) to use NbTi superconducting wire. In the past few years, price increase and low availability of liquid helium has become a serious problem. Under such circumstances, the development of a high-temperature superconducting (HTS) coil dispensing with liquid helium cooling is greatly desired. The research and development project of the high stable magnetic field ReBCO coil system fundamental technology that started from the latter half of 2013 develops a ReBCO coil for 3 T MRI superconducting magnets. It gets a prospect of the practical use as the final aim. In this project, we will produce an HTS test coil of 300 mm bore experimentally and evaluate the magnetic field. This coil is cooled in less than 20 K by a GM refrigerator. We are going to make MRI used by the ReBCO coil field to evaluate the uniformity and stability of the magnetic field.