High-temperature superconducting surface coil for in vivo microimaging of the human skin.

A small, high-temperature superconducting (HTS) surface coil was used to improve the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) for in vivo human skin microscopy at 1.5 T. The internal noise of the conventional copper coil limits the SNR for this application. Inductive measurements of the HTS coil parameters indicated that at 77 K its internal noise contributed about 4% of the total noise, and the predicted SNR gain was about 3.2-fold over that of a room-temperature copper coil. In vivo images of the human skin produced with the HTS coil showed highly resolved details and a 3.7-fold improvement in SNR over that obtained with the room-temperature copper coil. Magn Reson Med 45:376-382, 2001. Copyright 2001 Wiley-Liss, Inc.