Project Summary:

Magnetoencephalography (MEG) systems traditionally rely on cryogenically cooled magnetometers to detect the brain's faint magnetic fields, requiring expensive liquid helium infrastructure. This project designed and built a 3-axis magnetic field cancellation system that enables room-temperature MEG recording, eliminating the need for cryogenic cooling entirely.

I designed and hand-wound custom coils to actively cancel ambient magnetic fields across three axes, then validated the design through extensive Python-based field simulations to optimize coil geometry and placement for maximum field nullification accuracy. The resulting system improved field nullification performance while reducing overall system costs by over $500,000 compared to traditional cryogenic approaches.

This work was completed in partnership with the Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging at Massachusetts General Hospital, under the advisement of Markus Nemitz (WPI) and Padmavathi Sundaram (Martinos Center, MGH).

Key contributions:

• Designed and hand-wound custom 3-axis field cancellation coils

• Built Python simulation models to optimize coil geometry and field nullification

• Reduced system costs by over $500,000 versus cryogenic alternatives

• Improved field nullification accuracy for room-temperature operation