A Review of Current Control and Decoupling Methods for MRI Transmit Arrays.

The shortened radio frequency wavelength in high field MRI makes it challenging to create a uniform excitation pattern over a large field of view, or to achieve satisfactory transmission efficiency at a local area. Transmit arrays are one tool that can be used to create a desired excitation pattern. To be effective, it is important to be able to control the current amplitude and phase at the array elements. The control of the current may get complicated by the coil coupling in many applications. Various methods have been proposed to achieve current control, either in the presence of coupling, or by effectively decouple the array elements. These methods are applied in different subsystems in the RF transmission chain: coil; coil-amplifier interface; amplifier, etc. In this review paper, we provide an overview of the various approaches and aspects of transmit current control and decoupling.

An eight-channel T/R head coil for parallel transmit MRI at 3T using ultra-low output impedance amplifiers.

Parallel transmit is an emerging technology to address the technical challenges associated with MR imaging at high field strengths. When developing arrays for parallel transmit systems, one of the primary factors to be considered is the mechanism to manage coupling and create independently operating channels. Recent work has demonstrated the use of amplifiers to provide some or all of the channel-to-channel isolation, reducing the need for on-coil decoupling networks in a manner analogous to the use of isolation preamplifiers with receive coils. This paper discusses an eight-channel transmit/receive head array for use with an ultra-low output impedance (ULOI) parallel transmit system. The ULOI amplifiers eliminated the need for a complex lumped element network to decouple the eight-rung array. The design and construction details of the array are discussed in addition to the measurement considerations required for appropriately characterizing an array when using ULOI amplifiers. B1 maps and coupling matrices are used to verify the performance of the system.

Highly parallel transmit/receive systems for dynamic MRI.

Dynamic MRI continues to grow in interest and capability with the introduction of 64 and 128 channel receivers, and, more recently, 8 and 16 channel parallel transmitters. This talk will describe progress in developing a 64 channel transmitter and applications in high-speed MR imaging, reaching 1000 frames per second.