Volume coil based on hybridized resonators for magnetic resonance imaging

Abstract

We present an electromagnetic device based on hybridization of four half-wavelength dipoles which increases the uniformity and the strength of the radio-frequency (RF) field of a Magnetic Resonant Imaging (MRI) apparatus. Numerical results show that this Hybridized Coil (HC) excited with a classical loop coil takes advantage of the magnetic hybrid modes. The distribution of the RF magnetic field is experimentally confirmed on a 7-T MRI with a gelatin phantom. Finally, the HC is validated in vivo by imaging the head of an anesthetized rat. We measure an overall increase of the signal to noise ratio with up to 2.4 fold increase in regions of interest far from the active loop coil.