A fully-integrated detector for NMR microscopy in 0.13μm CMOS

In this paper, we present a fully integrated receiver for NMR microscopy applications realized in a 0.13 μm CMOS technology. The chip co-integrates a planar detection coil together with a complete low-IF downconversion receiver consisting of a low noise amplifier, a quadrature downconversion mixer, a baseband amplifier stage and line drivers. The chip operates from a single 1.5V supply and consumes about 12mA of current. The active chip area is about 350×450 μm
²
. The detector's measured input referred voltage noise density at the operating frequency of 300 MHz is 260 pV/√Hz resulting in a measured spin sensitivity of 2×10
¹³
spins/√Hz. Preliminary imaging experiments demonstrate the chip's capability of recording micron resolution MR images in imaging times which significantly advance the state-of-the-art.