A Design Approach of Surface Coil Element and Multi-Channel Array to Improve Magnetic Field with High Uniformity for 1.5T MRI

In this paper, an 8-channel radio frequency (RF) coil array for 1.5T magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is proposed, which consists of a combination of eight surface coil elements with high magnetic field uniformity. The proposed surface coil elements incorporate a semicircular design at both ends based on the rectangular coils, which can significantly improve the surface current inhomogeneity and RF magnetic field inhomogeneity caused by single-ended excitation. The proposed 8-channel array has better B
1
- field uniformity and receive sensitivity. Compared to the standard head birdcage coil, the peak B
1
-/√p strength can be enhanced by 89.25%, and the mean value of B
1
-/√p field can be enhanced by 20.14%.