Patent ID: 7859264

Claim:
An MRI apparatus capable of imaging small nonhuman animals comprising: a vacuum housing including at least one aperture, where each aperture is configured to receive a small nonhuman animal, a coolant assembly including a coolant inlet, a coolant outlet and a cold plate, where a coolant is configured to cool the cold plate, at least one resonator, each resonator comprising: two closed saddle-shaped coils in thermal contact with the cold plate, each saddle-shaped coil comprising: four members, each member including a superconducting layer, where the members are arranged in order to form four overlapping regions, each overlapping region comprises: a capacitor formed from overlapping portions of the superconducting layers of two of the members and an overlapping region dielectric layer interposed therebetween, where two of the members are straight and two of the members are curvilinear in order to form the closed saddle-shaped coils, and where a resonator surrounds each at least one aperture.