Exploiting a trade-off between preamplifier noise figure and bandwidth in the design of multi-nuclear MRI detectors

Abstract

The perspective of extending bandwidth of an MRI detector to ~3.2MHz can enable imaging of 13C, 23Na and 129Xe nuclei with a single coil in 3T scanners. Currently, multinuclear imaging is done using bulky multi-coil setups or triple-tuned matching networks. In this work we propose a different approach to cover several nuclei frequencies by extending the bandwidth of a single receive coil manipulating impedance of the preamplifiers. A trade-off analysis of the achieved bandwidth and SNR is performed. A design example is presented. The approach promises compact and light-weight realization, which is particularly useful for ultra-flexible multinuclear receive arrays.