Analytical Model of a “Split-Coil” for Implementation of novel Type of Receive Coil in Magnetic Resonance Imaging

In this work implementing MR receive coils from overlapping traces is investigated. Such a configuration is known from Microstrip transmission line (MTL) coils, which are basically used in Magnetic resonance - ultra high field (MR-UHF) imaging as TX-RX volume coils. Applications at lower field strengths are less common, because the required electrical length is more difficult to satisfy as the frequency decreases. Overlapping traces are already known for lower field strengths like 1.5T or 3T. Such configurations provide the ability of reducing the number of lumped on such a coil becoming more flexible. To investigate such a flexible coil the overlap is extended to much larger degree and it will be shown that this setup can be modeled as classical transmission line. An analytical model is developed and verified with simulations providing accurate calculations of the input impedance. This allows a reliable derivation of its parameters, which simplifies implementation of such coils.