Design of optical pumping noble gas MRI Phantom

Different to conventional water-proton MRI, the signal source of optical pumping hyperpolarized noble gas (HPNG) MRI is hyperpolarized noble gas. A set of phantom was designed to evaluate the performance of HPNG MRI system. In order to keep the polarizations of HPNG, all of sections of phantom were manufactured by nonmetal materials such as methacrylic resin or glass. All interfaces of phantom which contact with hyperpolarized noble gas were coated with paraffin to reduce the spin-lattice relaxation of HPNG caused by collisions between HPNG and phantom walls. The phantom was used to establish absolutely performance standards. The magnetic resonance imaging of phantom provides information of HPNG MRI system including: image uniformity, slice position, spatial linearity, slice thickness, spatial resolution, phase related image artifacts. The phantom system includes resolution section, slice thickness section, uniformity and linearity section. All of these sections were placed inside of a rectangular box with vacuum valve.