Abstract
Today the Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) and Magnetic Resonance Imaging are very well-established methods for noninvasive investigations of live objects, substances and materials. The radio frequency (RF) coil is the first component where the Magnetic Resonance (MR) signal is stimulated and received and therefore is one of the most important components of a Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) system. The design of properly developed RF coils is the key to achieve the best clinical, preclinical or experimental result for MRI scientists or clinicians. In this chapter a detailed overview on RF-coil concepts for MRI is presented. This article contains some results of my personal work and the study of many articles, reference textbooks, and other people’s work. The intention of this chapter is to give the reader a rough summary of the state-of-the-art knowledge and physical background of MRI RF coils engineering in an easy-to-understand format. This chapter contains three main sections. The first section is a simple introduction to MRI and will provide a basic understanding of MR physics behind the detection of RF signals for MRI for students who do not have any knowledge of MRI or NMR. The RF engineer must be familiar with these basic principles in order to design and build successfully a MRI RF coil. The next section is related to the basic types of RF coils. It is divided in multiple subsections covering volume coils and their basic design principles, local RF coils including their arrangement for so-called array RF coils, and last but not least cryogenically cooled RF coils. The last section discusses further directions and challenges in the field of MRI RF coil engineering and gives a brief description of active shaping of the RF field within a given volume and its challenges. While this section gives only a rough overview about the topics of MRI RF coil engineering, the interested reader will find the most interesting textbooks and articles in the reference section.
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Junge, S. (2015). Antennas in MRI Systems. In: Chen, Z. (eds) Handbook of Antenna Technologies. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-4560-75-7_121-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-4560-75-7_121-1
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