Visualizing electromagnetic fields in metals by MRI

Based upon Maxwell’s equations, it has long been established that oscillating electromagnetic (EM) fields incident upon a metal surface, decay exponentially inside the conductor, leading to a virtual absence of EM fields at sufficient depths. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) utilizes radiofrequency (r.f.) EM fields to produce images. Here we present a visualization of a virtual EM vacuum inside a bulk metal strip by MRI, amongst several findings. At its simplest, an MRI image is an intensity map of density variations across voxels (pixels) of identical size (=Δx Δy Δz). By contrast in bulk metal MRI, we uncover that despite uniform density, intensity variations arise from differing effective elemental volumes (voxels) from different parts of the bulk metal. Further, we furnish chemical shift imaging (CSI) results that discriminate different faces (surfaces) of a metal block according to their distinct nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) chemical shifts, which holds much promise for monitoring surface chemical reactions noninvasively. Bulk metals are ubiquitous, and MRI is a premier noninvasive diagnostic tool. Combining the two, the emerging field of bulk metal MRI can be expected to grow in importance. The findings here may impact further development of bulk metal MRI and CSI.