Magnetic field compensation coil design for magnetoencephalography

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Abstract
While optically pumped magnetometers (OPMs) can be attached to the head of a person and allow for highly sensitive recordings of the human magnetoencephalogram (MEG), they are mostly limited to an operational range of approximately 5 nT. Consequently, even inside a magnetically shielded room (MSR), movements in the remnant magnetic field disable the OPMs. Active suppression of the remnant field utilizing compensation coils is therefore essential. We propose 8 compensation coils on 5 sides of a cube with a side length of approximately 2 m which were optimized for operation inside an MSR. Compared to previously built bi-planar compensation coils, the coils proposed in this report are more complex in geometry and achieved smaller errors for simulated compensation fields. The proposed coils will allow for larger head movements or smaller movement artifacts in future MEG experiments compared to existing coils.
Funding Information
  • Max Planck Society
  • Free State of Thuringia (2018 IZN 004)
  • European Union under the European Regional Development Fund
  • European Research Council (ERC-CoG GEOCOG 724836)
  • Kavli Foundation
  • Centre of Excellence scheme of the Research Council of Norway – Centre for Neural Computation (223262/F50)
  • Egil and Pauline Braathen and Fred Kavli Centre for Cortical Microcircuits
  • National Infrastructure scheme of the Research Council of Norway – NORBRAIN (197467/F50)
  • Stiftelsen Kristian Gerhard Jebsen
  • Technische Universität Ilmenau

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