Optimal design of a high homogeneous and small-size shim coil for atomic spin gyroscope based on 0-1 linear programming

It is necessary to develop a high homogeneous, low power consumption, high frequency and small-size shim coil for high precision and low-cost atomic spin gyroscope (ASG). To provide the shim coil, a multi-objective optimization design method is proposed. All structural parameters including the wire diameter are optimized. In addition to the homogeneity, the size of optimized coil, especially the axial position and winding number, is restricted to develop the small-size shim coil with low power consumption. The 0-1 linear programming is adopted in the optimal model to conveniently describe winding distributions. The branch and bound algorithm is used to solve this model. Theoretical optimization results show that the homogeneity of the optimized shim coil is several orders of magnitudes better than the same-size solenoid. A simulation experiment is also conducted. Experimental results show that optimization results are verified, and power consumption of the optimized coil is about half of the solenoid when providing the same uniform magnetic field. This indicates that the proposed optimal method is feasible to develop shim coil for ASG.

Prototype REBCO Z1 and Z2 shim coils for ultra high-field

We present promising results of novel high-temperature superconducting (HTS) shim coil prototypes that circumvent the size and strength limitation of our earlier innovative HTS shim concept based on 46-mm wide REBCO tape. The HTS shim coil is placed inside the HTS magnet, mainly for ultra-high-field (> 1 GHz or 23.5 T) NMR magnets, and thus unaffected from the windings’ diamagnetic wall effects. One full-scale version will be applied to clean up Z1 and Z2 harmonic errors in the MIT 1.3-GHz high-resolution NMR magnet composed of an 835-MHz HTS insert, while another version for an MIT 1-GHz microcoil NMR magnet whose small-scale model we are currently building. The prototype sets were wound with a 2-pile, 1.03-mm wide, 0.30-mm thick REBCO conductor. Operated at 77 K, the Z1 shim set generated a 1st harmonic field strength of 179 kHz/cm at 70 A, while the Z2 shim set, composed of two pairs, Z21 and Z22, generated the 2nd harmonic field of 141 kHz/cm2 at 50 A. Together with discussion on technical challenges for this REBCO shim coil concept, we demonstrate its feasibility for the next generation of ultra-high-field (UHF) HTS NMR magnets.