• 한국초전도ㆍ저온공학회논문지
• /
• 제22권4호
• /
• pp.62-66
• /
• 2020

We fabricated superconducting quantum interference devices (SQUIDs) based on Nb Josephson junctions, and characterized the key parameters of the SQUIDs. The SQUIDs are double relaxation oscillation SQUIDs (DROSs) having larger flux-to-voltage transfer coefficient than the standard DC-SQUIDs. SQUID sensors were fabricated by using Nb junction technology consisted of a DC magnetron sputtering and a conventional photolithography process. In multichannel SQUID systems for whole-head magnetoencephalography measurement with a helmet-type SQUID array, we need about 336 SQUID sensors for each system. In this paper, we fabricated a few hundred SQUID sensors, measured the critical current, flux modulation voltage and decided if each tested SQUID can be used for the multichannel systems. As the criterion for the acceptance of the sensors, we chose the critical current and amplitude of the modulation voltage to be 8 ㎂ and 80 ㎶, respectively. The average critical current of the SQUIDs was 10.58 ㎂. The typical flux noise of the SQUIDs with input coil shorted was 2 μΦ0/√Hz at white region.

• Progress in Superconductivity
• /
• 제13권1호
• /
• pp.1-6
• /
• 2011

Measurement of magnetic signals generated from electric activity of myocardium provides useful information for the functional diagnosis of heart diseases. Key technical component of the magnetocardiography (MCG) technology is SQUID. To measure MCG signals with high signal-to-noise ratio, sensitive SQUID magnetic field sensors are needed. Present magnetic field sensors based on Nb SQUIDs have field sensitivity good enough to measure most of MCG signals. However, for accurate measurement of fine signal pattern or detection of local atrial fibrillation signals, we may need higher field sensitivity. In addition to field sensitivity, economic aspect of the SQUID system is also important. To simplify the SQUID readout electronics, the output voltage or flux-to-voltage transfer of SQUID should be large enough so that direct measurement of SQUID output can be done using room-temperature preamplifiers. Double relaxation oscillation SQUID (DROS), having about 10 times larger flux-to-voltage transfers than those of DC-SQUIDs, was shown to be a good choice to make the electronics compact. For effective cancellation of external noise inside a thin economic shielded room, first-order axial gradiometer with high balance, simple structure and long-baseline is needed. We developed a technology to make the axial gradiometer compact using direct bonding of superconductive wires between pickup coil and input coil. Conventional insert has mechanical support to hold the gradiometer array, and the dewar neck has equal diameter with the dewar bottom. Boiling of the liquid He can generate mechanical vibrations in the gradiometer array due to mechanical connection structure. Elimination of the mechanical support, and direct mounting of the gradiometer array into the dewar bottom can reduce the dewar neck diameter, resulting in the reduction of liquid He consumption.

• 대한의용생체공학회:의공학회지
• /
• 제18권4호
• /
• pp.421-428
• /
• 1997

초전도양자간섭소자(SQUID)를 이용한 자장센서는 현재 개발된 자장센서중에서 감도가 가장 우수한 소자로서 인체의 두뇌에서 발생하는 매우 미약한 자장에 측정이 가능하다. 뇌자도측정은 현재 많이 사용되고 있는 전기적인 측정(뇌파, 뇌유발전위) 에 비해 공간분해능이 우수하고, fMRI나 PET에 비해서는 시간분해능이 우수하므로 뇌기능연구에 유용하게 사용될 수 있다. 본 연구에서는 뇌자도 측정을 위하여 4-채널 SQUID시스템을 개발하였다. 개발된 시스템의 주요 특징은 새로운 방식의 SQUID센서를 채택함으로서 간단한 회로로써 SQUID구동이 가능하도록 하였으며, 검출코일의 신뢰성을 향상시키기 위하여 집적화된 평면형 코일을 사용하였다. 외부 환경잡음을 소거하기 위하여 자기차폐실을 설치하였고, 개발된 SQUID 시스템을 이용하여 뇌의 청각령으로부터 발생하는 자기신호를 측정하였다.

• Progress in Superconductivity
• /
• 제4권1호
• /
• pp.42-47
• /
• 2002

Measuring magnetic fields with a SQUID sensor always requires preliminary adjustments such as optimum bas current determination and flux-locking point search. A conventional magnetoencephalography (MEG) system consists of several dozens of sensors and we should condition each sensor one by one for an experiment. This timeconsuming job is not only cumbersome but also impractical for the common use in hospital. We had developed a serial port communication protocol between SQUID sensor controllers and a personal computer in order to control the sensors. However, theserial-bus-based control is too slow for adjusting all the sensors with a sufficient accuracy in a reasonable time. In this work, we introduce programmatic control sequence that saves the number of the control pulse arrays. The sequence separates into two stages. The first stage is a function for searching flux-locking points of the sensors and the other stage is for determining the optimum bias current that operates a sensor in a minimum noise level Generally, the optimum bias current for a SQUID sensor depends on the manufactured structure, so that it will not easily change about. Therefore, we can reduce the time for the optimum bias current determination by using the saved values that have been measured once by the second stage sequence. Applying the first stage sequence to a practical use, it has taken about 2-3 minutes to perform the flux-locking for our 37-channel SQUID magnetometer system.

• 한국초전도ㆍ저온공학회논문지
• /
• 제22권4호
• /
• pp.1-5
• /
• 2020

Heart consists of myocardium cells and the electrophysiological activity of the cells generate magnetic fields. By measuring this magnetic field, magnetocardiogram (MCG), functional diagnosis of the heart diseases is possible. Since the strength of the MCG signals is weak, typically in the range of 1-10 pT, we need sensitive magnetic sensors. Conventionally, superconducting quantum interference devices (SQUID)s were used for the detection of MCG signals due to its superior sensitivity to other magnetic sensors. However, drawback of the SQUID is the need for regular refill of a cryogenic liquid, typically liquid helium for cooling low-temperature SQUIDs. Efforts to eliminate the need for the refill in the SQUID system have been done by using cryocooler-based conduction cooling or use of non-cryogenic sensors, or room-temperature sensors. Each sensor has advantage and disadvantage, in terms of magnetic field sensitivity and complexity of the system, and we review the recent trend of MCG technology.

• 대한전기학회:학술대회논문집
• /
• 대한전기학회 2004년도 학술대회 논문집 정보 및 제어부문
• /
• pp.538-540
• /
• 2004

Electrical currents generated by human heart activities create magnetic fields represented by MCG(MagnetoCardioGram). Since an MCG signal acquisition system requires precise and stable operation, the system adopts hundreds of SQUID(Superconducting QUantum Interface Device) sensors for signal acquisition. Such a system requires fast real-time data acquisition in a required sampling interval, i.e., 1 mili-second for each sensor. This paper presents designed hardware to acquire data from 256-channel analog signal with 1 ksamples/sec speed, using 12-bit 8-channel ADC devices, SPI interfaces, parallel interfaces, 8-bit microprocessors, and a DSP processor. We implemented SPI interface between ADCs and a microprocessor, parallel interfaces between microprocessors. Our result concludes that the data collection can be done in $168{\mu}sec$ time-interval for 256 SQUID sensors, which can be interpreted to 6 ksamples/sec speed.

• 대한전자공학회:학술대회논문집
• /
• 대한전자공학회 2003년도 하계종합학술대회 논문집 V
• /
• pp.2749-2752
• /
• 2003

Magnetocardiography is a very weak biomagnetic field generated from the heart. Since the magnitude of the biomagnetic field is in the order of a few pico Tesla, it is measured with a superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID). SQUID is a transducer converting magnetic flux to voltage, however, its range of linear conversion is very restricted. In order to overcome the narrow dynamic range. a flux locked loop is used to feedback the output field with opposite polarity to the input field so that the total Held becomes zero. This prevents the operating point of the SQUID from moving too far away from the null point thereby escape from the linear region. In this paper, an emulator for the SQUID sensor and feedback coil is proposed. Magnetic courting between the original field and the generated field by the feedback coil is emulated by electronic circuits. By using the emulator, FLL circuits are analyzed and optimized without SQUID sensors. The emulator may be used as a test signal for multi-channel gain calibration and system maintenance.

• Progress in Superconductivity
• /
• 제4권2호
• /
• pp.121-126
• /
• 2003

The single layer direct-coupled YBCO SQUID magnetometers have been fabricated and characterized for the purpose of the measurement of weak magnetic signals in unshielded environment. Two types of magnetometers have been designed and fabricated using 10 mm$\times$ 10 mm substrates. We could operate the conventional 3-mm-wide solid pickup loop magnetometers more stably than the 12-parallel-line pickup loop magnetometers in laboratory environment. We developed a first-order electronic gradiometer system using the SQUID sensors with axial displacement of 80 mm without any mechanical alignment of magnetometers. The system with a software filter using calculation of discrete Fourier transform could record clearly weak pulse signal of 100 pT in a magnetically disturbed environment.

• 한국전기전자재료학회:학술대회논문집
• /
• 한국전기전자재료학회 2004년도 하계학술대회 논문집 Vol.5 No.2
• /
• pp.902-905
• /
• 2004

A heart diagnosis system adopts Superconducting Quantum Interface Device(SQUID) sensors for precision MCG signal acquisitions. Such system is composed of hundreds of sensors, requiring fast signal sampling and precise analog-digital conversions(ADC). Our development of hardware board, processing 64-channel 12-bit 1ks/s, is built by using 8-channel ADC chips, 8-bit microprocessors, SPI interfaces, and parallel data transfers between microprocessors to meet the 1ks/s, i.e. 1 ms speed. The test result shows that the signal acquisition is done in 168 usuc which is much shorter than the required 1 ms period. This hardware will be extended to 256 channel data acquisition to be used for the diagnosis system.

• Progress in Superconductivity
• /
• 제8권2호
• /
• pp.158-163
• /
• 2007

YBCO do superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) magnetometers based on bicrystal junctions have been fabricated for magnetocardiograph (MCG) measurements. We could fabricate YBCO SQUID magnetometers having magnetic field noise of about $20fT/Hz^{1/2}$ at white noise region. We have developed an MCG system employing the high performance SQUID magnetometers. The lightweight MCG system, requiring liquid nitrogen as a coolant, consists of 6-channel SQUID sensors, an adjustable patient bed with sliding motion, and data analyses software. The MCG system could record quite clear MCG signals in a room with moderate magnetic shielding. In normal operation with multi-position MCG measurements, we could obtain clear 48-point mappings of magnetic field map and current source map with high enough signal qualities far clinical trials.