A Novel Magnetic Resonance Phased-Array Coil Designed with FDTD Algorithm

• Published in: Applied magnetic resonance Vol. 39; no. 3; pp. 225 - 231
• Main Authors: Giovannetti, G., Frijia, F., Hartwig, V., Viti, V., Landini, L.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Vienna Springer Vienna 01-10-2010; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Algorithms; Animals; Arrays; Atoms and Molecules in Strong Fields; Coils; Decoupling; Design; Dielectric properties; Finite difference time domain method; Geometry; Image quality; Laser Matter Interaction; Magnetic resonance imaging; Numerical analysis; Organic Chemistry; Physical Chemistry; Physics; Physics and Astronomy; Signal to noise ratio; Simulation; Software; Solid State Physics; Spectroscopy/Spectrometry; Magnetic Resonance Imaging Coil; Mutual Inductance; Mutual Coupling; Coil Element; Capacitive Coupling
• ISSN: 0937-9347; 1613-7507
• DOI: 10.1007/s00723-010-0150-z

Radio-frequency receiver phased-array coils in magnetic resonance imaging systems are used to pick up the signals emitted by the nuclei with high signal-to-noise ratio and a large region of sensitivity. Since the quality of obtained images strongly depends upon the correct choice of the coil geometry and position, array coils have to be designed by minimizing the mutual interaction among nearby coil elements and this is generally achieved by overlapping such adjacent elements. In this paper, we describe the use of a numerical solver based on finite-difference time-domain method to determine the optimal overlap distance, which guarantees the maximum decoupling level between the coil loops, for array coils constituted by various geometry elements. A novel array coil was designed, constituted by a couple of elliptical geometry elements in “folding” version around the animals’ spine curvature, for small animals’ imaging applications.