Design, construction and performance testing of a 1.5 T cryogen-free low-temperature superconductor whole-body MRI magnet

This work describes the design, construction and testing of a 1.5 T cryogen-free low-temperature superconductor niobium–titanium whole-body magnet with a bore diameter of 850 mm that is suitable for clinical magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) applications. The magnet is actively shielded and passively shimmed to achieve confinement within a 0.5 mT stray magnetic field at 2.5/4 m radial/axial positions and 12.1 ppm field inhomogeneity over a 45 mm diameter of spherical volume. The magnet is conductively refrigerated using a two-stage Gifford–McMahon cryocooler and can be maintained at a steady temperature below 5.7 K during MRI scanning. The MRI scanner assembled with the designed cryogen-free magnet demonstrated stable performance and provided MRI images with good quality and high contrast.