The theoretical analysis and experiments demonstrated the feasibility of the decoupling method for high field RF coil array designs without overlapping or direct physical connections between coil elements, which provide more flexibility for coil array design and optimization. The method offers a new approach to address the RF array decoupling issue, which is a major challenge in implementing parallel imaging.

In this work, an 8-element by 8-element dual-tuned quadrature volume coil with a mix of capacitor terminated half-wavelength (λ/2) and quarter-wavelength (λ/4) microstrip resonators is proposed for multinuclear MRI/S studies at 7T. In the proton channel, λ/2 microstrip resonators with capacitive terminations on both ends are employed for operation at higher frequency of 298.1 MHz; in the heteronucleus channel, capacitor terminated λ/4 resonators, suitable for low frequency operations, are used to meet the low frequency requirement. This mixed structure design is particularly advantageous for high field heteronuclei MR applications with large difference in Larmor frequency of the nuclei in question. The proposed design method makes it much easier to perform frequency tuning for heteronucleus channel using a variable capacitor with a practical capacitance range. As an example, a dual-tuned volume coil for 1H/13C mouse spectroscopic imaging was proposed to demonstrate the feasibility of this method. The finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method is first used to model this dual-tuned volume coil and calculate the B1 field distributions at two frequencies. Transmission parameters (S21) measured between the proton channel and the carbon channel are −50 dB at 75 MHz and −35 dB at 298 MHz, showing the excellent isolation between the two channels at 7T. The proton image and 13C FID CSI image of a corn oil phantom on the axial plane at 7T demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed method. A preliminary proton image of a mouse on the sagittal plane is also acquired using the proposed dual-tuned volume coil at 7T, illustrating a fairly uniform B1 field and sufficient image coverage for imaging in mice.

In a multimodal volume coil, only one mode can generate homogeneous Radiofrequency (RF) field for Magnetic Resonance Imaging. The existence of other modes may increase the volume coil design difficulties and potentially decreases coil performance. In this study, we introduce common-mode resonator technique to high and ultrahigh field volume coil designs to reduce the resonant mode while maintain the homogeneity of the RF field. To investigate the design method, the common-mode resonator was realized by using a microstrip line which was split along the central to become a pair of parallel transmission lines within which common-mode currents exist. Eight common-mode resonators were placed equidistantly along the circumference of a low loss dielectric cylinder to form a volume coil. Theoretical analysis and comparison between the 16-strut common-mode volume coil and a conventional 16-strut volume coil in terms of RF field homogeneity and efficiency was performed using Finite-Difference Time-Domain (FDTD) method at 298.2 MHz. MR imaging experiments were performed by using a prototype of the common-mode volume coil on a whole body 7 Tesla scanner. FDTD simulation results showed the reduced number of resonant modes of the common-mode volume coil over the conventional volume coil, while the RF field homogeneity of the two type volume coils was kept at the same level. MR imaging of a water phantom and a kiwi fruit showing the feasibility of the proposed method for simplifying the volume coil design is also presented.