with 1.0 × 107 microspheres in each sample. MM-OCT imaging of samples was performed with a spectral-domain OCT
system using a Ti:Al2O3 femtosecond laser (KMLabs, Inc.) as a light source, which was described previously
[9 (link)]. The light, with a bandwidth of 120 nm centered at 800 nm, provided ~3 Pm
axial imaging resolution. A magnetic field of ~0.08 T and a gradient of ~15 T m was produced within the sample
imaging volume using a water-cooled magnet. The light beam on the sample was scanned through the central bore of the solenoid and
the interference between the reference and sample beams was measured with a custom-made spectrometer, providing 2 mm imaging
depth. MM-OCT imaging was done at 100 Hz and 200 Hz, with a scan rate of 1000 A-scans/sec.
A 14.1 T Varian system with an 89 mm bore size and 600 MHz Varian Unity/Inova NMR spectrometer was used for MRI
measurements. Measurements were taken at four different echo times of 3.3 ms, 5.0 ms, 7.0 ms, and 9.0 ms, and nineteen MRI slices
were taken throughout the full volume of the gel in the capillary tubes to create a standard curve and calculate the relaxation
times (T2*) using a Matlab script.