November 2020.

“We have tested the SHUTE mPOF sensor, and found it MRI/NMR compatible, it shows no sign of decrease in performance, when subjected to a gradient coil exercised with magnetic field strengths up to 1.5 T/m within a static main field of a 9.4 T super-conducting magnet. This paves the way for a whole new way of monitoring critical temperature values inside the MRI/NMR scanner environment.” says Palle Koch, Engineer, Dept. of Biomedical Sciences, University of Copenhagen.

Sensing in high magnetic fields can be a challenge, however as SHUTE sensors are made of polymer (plastic), the hypothesis was that SHUTE sensors could survive and even work unaffected in the higly magnetic environment.

To test this, the SHUTE micro-structured Polymer Optical Fiber (mPOF) sensor was placed into a 9.4 Tesla biospec preclinical MRI Scanner manufactured by Bruker. The test was done at the University of Copenhagen, Panum NMR Core Facility (www.nmr.ku.dk), where several high field strength measurements were conducted with the mPOF inside. The goal of the test was to see if the mPOF could survive the high intensity magnetic fields and whether there was any noticeably signal change during the measurements.

In conclusion, the mPOF did not show any decrease in performance during the MRI measurements. There were no sudden jumps or induced noise in the measured sensor response of the mPOF and the signal strength of the sensor remained constant during the insertion into the magnet and the subsequent MRI measurements. You can read more about it here: 'MRI Scanner Results'