Second-order, high-temperature superconducting gradiometer for magnetocardiography in unshielded environment

By employing high-temperature superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) magnetometers, we have assembled a second-order gradiometer for magnetocardiography (MCG) in unshielded environment. With this high-temperature superconductor (HTS) SQUID system, we demonstrated its diagnostic relevance for MCG in terms of signal-to-noise ratio, spatial resolution, frequency bandwidth, rejection of environmental disturbances, and long-term stability. The electronically balanced gradiometer consists of three HTS radio-frequency SQUIDs with superconducting coplanar resonators, mounted in axial gradiometric arrangement with a baseline of 7.5 cm. The system achieves a common mode rejection for axial homogeneous fields of about 104 without any mechanical balancing, and a white noise about 130 fT/√Hz at 77 K, with an 8×8 mm2 flux pickup area. MCG maps above volunteers’ chests have been recorded in unshielded environment in a bandwidth of about 130 Hz. We showed the influence of several notch filters (suppressing the power line frequency) on the quality of the MCG signals.