Compared with conventional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) system,the main magnetic field of ultralow field MRI system could be reduced to mT level or even μT level,which not only reduces the cost and size of the equipment, but also makes it possible to obtain special images which would be impossibly obtained by ordinary high field MRI equipments. The paper proposes a new magnetic resonance signals detection method based on optical pumping, which uses the principles that an external magnetic field affects the alkali metal atoms on the absorption of specific wavelengths of light, and magnetic resonance signals can be measured by detecting the transmitted light intensity. Finally, the paper presents the experiment results of simulated one dimensional and two dimensional MRI signals generated via a coil. The results show that the method has a good frequency resolution and stability of phase control for magnetic resonance signals detection. Since the method has high sensitivity, low cost and the need for very weak background field in signal detection, it is especially suitable for ultralow field magnetic resonance signal detection.
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