A mini NMR imaging system for teaching and training

This work presents a mini NMR (Nuclear Magnetic Resonance) imaging system that has been developed for cost-effective bioengineering pre-graduate students teaching and training. It consists of a compact permanent magnet, an RF electronic modular system, a signal acquisition subsystem and a computer; all these parts can operate independently, allowing easy and intuitive manipulations. Manual interaction with each module is possible, although a computerised automatism can also be programmed. Being a completely open system, students can manipulate almost every parameter of an NMR signal acquisition, visualising in real time the different effects. The system has proved to be reliable enough to allow the implementation of several research experiments. To the authors best knowledge, there is no commercial system with these characteristics available on the market.