High-performance portable spin-exchange optical pumping polarizer for hyperpolarized 129Xe MRI

There is increasing interest in hyperpolarized (HP) ¹²⁹Xe MRI for research and clinical imaging questions in the lungs and other organs where dissolved xenon can be used to assess tissue perfusion. With the motivation of increasing the availability of HP ¹²⁹Xe technology we undertook to design and build a portable ¹²⁹Xe polarizer. We demonstrate here a compact portable ¹²⁹Xe polarizer capable of generating ¹²⁹Xe polarized to ~35% at a production rate of 1.8 L/h. The polarizer is entirely self-contained, requiring only mains electricity at the site of interest.