In brief

New Web Site
If you haven't done so yet, we invite you to visit the all-new Metrolab web site. Besides the product catalogue and contact information, you'll now find all our prices, brochures, manuals, tech notes, and software online. We've also tried putting part of our brains online, with extensive descriptions of how our products are used, the underlying measurement technologies, their pros and cons… even a glossary of terms encountered in magnetic measurement. A real Swiss army knife!

A "beeper" for magnetic safety: we need your opinion!
Strong fringe fields such as those around an MRI system are an invisible but potent hazard. Wheelchairs become deadly missiles, pace makers and hip prostheses cause severe internal injuries, and, less dramatically, equipment around the magnet malfunctions. In collaboration with our US distributor GMW, we're developing a small, inexpensive "beeper" to alert unwary users that they are approaching a potentially dangerous magnetic field.  We invite you to join the think tank and help us produce the device of your dreams: send your thoughts to Philip Keller, Marketing & Product Management.

PT2026: latest update
Last fall, it was finally shipping… and then it wasn't. What's the deal? Well, it's fair to say that the development of our new-generation NMR Precision Teslameter – the replacement for the time-honoured PT2025 – has been all but simple. Two issues in particular, both related to integrating the existing PT2025 probes into the new all-digital design, have caused us severe heartache. These have now been solved, one with sophisticated new signal-processing algorithms, the other with a bit of new hardware. We've also taken the opportunity to step back and systematically rethink all our firmware. In the case of the DSP firmware, this precipitated a complete rewrite. The good news is that the PT2026 will ship with an initial level of quality even better than expected. However, we must ask for your continued patience, because it won't be available before the second quarter of next year.

Mini Magnetic Field Camera
For some time, we have been working with Dr. Giovanni Boero, of the Federal Polytechnic University in Lausanne (EPFL), on a miniaturised version of our multi-probe NMR mapping system. Designed for a bore diameter as small as 4 cm and field strengths upwards of about 7 T, this fully motorized Mini Magnetic Field Camera is ideal, for example, for shimming superconducting NMR spectroscopy magnets. In our first field trials, the prototype met all expectations. A resolution of under 10 ppb and the rapid turn-around time allowed us to do an honourable rough shim "by eye," using only back-of-the-envelope calculations, in only two iterations. Learn all about this impressive system in a future issue.