Process of conversion of continuous (analog) signals, such as the detected MR signal (voltage), into numbers. This is carried out with an analog to digital converter. There are two kinds of discretization involved: the voltage is only measured (sampled) at particular discrete times, and only voltages within a particular range and separated by a particular minimum amount can be distinguished. Voltages beyond this range are said to exceed the dynamic range of the digitizer.

Quick Overview
Please note that there are different common names for this artifact.

Noise introduced into digitized signals by the finite voltage resolution of the digitizer.
You can see the effects of quantization if the noise level is smaller than the digitizer quantum. If the signal dynamic range is too great, the highest intensities from overloading the digitizer may result in the weaker features being lost in the digitization noise.

This can be resolved by using an analog to digital converter with a larger range of sensitivity or by using techniques to reduce the dynamic range, e.g. suppressing the signal from water in order to detect the signal from less abundant compounds.

Quick Overview
Please note that there are different common names for this MRI artifact.

The Gibbs or ringing artifact appears as a series of lines in the MR image parallel to abrupt and intense changes in the object at this location. This artifact does not occur visibly on smooth objects. This artifact is caused by the Gibbs phenomenon, an overshoot or ringing of Fourier series occurring at discontinuities.
In the spinal cord, a small syrinx can be simulated by the Gibbs phenomenon. Gibbs artifacts are also seen in other regions, for example the brain//skull interface.
Fine lines visible in an image may be due to undersampling of the high spatial frequencies, respectively incomplete digitization of the echo.
With more encoding steps the Gibbs artifacts is less intense and narrower. Therefore, e.g. the artifact is more intense in the 256 point dimension of a 256x512 acquisition matrix.

This problem can only be resolved by smoothing filters (LanczosSigmaFactor, 2-D Exponential Filtering, Gegenbauer Reconstruction etc.) or with a higher acquisition matrix and/or a smaller FOV, to smooth the object.

See also Gibbs Phenomenon and Apodization.

The range of signal intensities that may need to be distinguished in an image or spectrum or that can be distinguished by the electronic components. If the signal dynamic range is too great, the need to keep the highest intensities from overloading the digitizer may result in the weaker features being lost in the digitization noise. This can be dealt with by using an analog to digital converter with a larger range of sensitivity or by using techniques to reduce the dynamic range, e.g. suppressing the signal from water in order to detect the signal from less abundant compounds.

Detector that detects the phase of the signal relative to the phase of a reference oscillator. Phase sensitive detectors are used in MR transmitters (where they form part of the frequency synthesis pathway) and MR receivers (where they are used to down-convert the MR signal to audio-frequencies prior to digitization). This device type includes modulators, demodulators and mixers.

See Quadrature Detector.