NMR technology development is motivated primarily by the need for greater sensitivity followed closely by the need to improve spectral resolution. Higher magnetic fields lead to increased signal strength in proportion to B02 and a decrease in signal averaging time in proportion to B03. Therefore, high field magnets are critical to NMR improvements. The current carrying capacity of many high temperature superconductors does not decrease significantly even at field strengths as high as 30 T. Therefore, high temperature superconductors are good candidates for magnet development for fields above 23 T. However, high temperature superconductors are brittle ceramic materials (BSCCO is bismuth, strontium, calcium, copper oxide and YBCO is yttrium, barium, copper oxide). In metal processing, a malleable wire is wound into a coil magnet. Bulk ceramic wires can not be wound into coils. Much effort and expense has been spent on converting these ceramics into malleable wires. The processes are very expensive and still developmental. This program will produce high temperature superconductor magnets for NMR without first producing wires. These magnets will boost the performance of NMR systems at a much lower cost.
This work will have application to high-performance, high-field NMR systems. The magnets produced will be a low cost alternative to other magnets, providing more design flexibility. These magnets will also have applications in voltage transformers and other magnet applications.
