Researchers demonstrate nanoscale MRI technique

This is said to represent a significant advance in MRI sensitivity as modern MRI techniques commonly used in medical imaging yield spatial resolutions on the millimetre length scale, with the highest-resolution experimental instruments giving spatial resolution of a few micrometers.

‘This is a very promising experimental result,’ said U. of I. physicist Raffi Budakian, who led the research. ‘Our approach brings MRI one step closer in its eventual progress toward atomic-scale imaging.’

MRI is used widely in clinical practice to distinguish pathologic tissue from normal tissue. It is non-invasive and harmless to the patient, using strong magnetic fields and non-ionising electromagnetic fields in the radio frequency range, unlike CT scans and traditional X-rays, which use more harmful ionising radiation.

MRI uses static and time-dependent magnetic fields to detect the collective response of large ensembles of nuclear spins from molecules localised within millimetre-scale volumes in the body. Increasing the detection resolution from the millimetre to nanometre range would be a significant technological advance.