World's most powerful MRI gets set to come online
(Phys.org) —The most powerful MRI machine in the world is nearing completion. The new instrument will be able to generate 11.75 Tesla, a field strong enough to lift 60 metric tons. Squeezing out those last few Tesla (the previous record for field strength was around 9.4) requires extraordinary precision in the design and manufacture of the superconductor magnets at its core. As a recent article in IEEE Spectrum reports, fields of this magnitude are stronger than those used in the Large Hadron Collider which famously discovered the Higgs boson. As a research tool, a machine like this would allow the brain to be imaged in unprecedented detail—a voxel size of .1mm as compared to 1 mm previously. But as medical device makers struggle to design implants that won't move, heat up or otherwise fail in fields of that strength, the opportunity for new discovery in the brain, will by guided...