A CRLH metamaterial based RF coil element for magnetic resonance imaging at 7 tesla

Abstract

The possibility of using composite right/left-handed (CRLH) zeroth-order resonant antennas (ZORAs) in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to provide the highly uniform RF magnetic field required for high-quality MRI is explored. A series-mode metal-insulator-metal (MIM) CRLH zeroth-order resonant “coil” (ZORC) element is proposed for this purpose. This ZORC element is shown to provide a very uniform field, appropriate for sagittal or coronal MRI images, and to exhibit a favorable loaded/unloaded Q-factor ratio of around 1/2.