Toward Human-Scale Magnetic Particle Imaging: Development of the First System With Superconductor- Based Selection Coils

Magnetic Particle Imaging (MPI) is an emerging tomographic modality that allows for precise three-dimensional (3D) mapping of magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) concentration and distribution. Although significant progress has been made towards improving MPI since its introduction, scaling it up for human applications has proven challenging. High-quality images have been obtained in animal-scale MPI scanners with gradients up to 7 T/m/ , however, for MPI systems with bore diameters around 200 mm the gradients generated by electromagnets drop significantly to below 0.5 T/m/ . Given the current technological limitations in image reconstruction and the properties of available MNPs, these low gradients inherently impose limitations on improving MPI resolution for higher precision medical imaging. Utilizing superconductors stands out as a promising approach for developing a human-scale MPI system.…