Stephan Orzada1,2, Oliver Kraff2, Lena C. Schfer2, Irina Brote2, Achim Bahr3, Thomas Bolz3, Stefan Maderwald2, Mark E. Ladd2, Andreas K. Bitz2
1 Erwin L. Hahn Institute for MRI, Essen, Germany; 2Department of Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology and Neuroradiology, University Hospital Essen, Essen, Germany; 3IMST GmbH, Kamp-Lintfort, Germany
An 8-channel transmit/receive head coil for 7 T was built and tested for B1 efficiency, B1 homogeneity, and SAR efficiency. The head coil consists of 8 intrinsically decoupled strip line elements with meanders. It was found that the new design allows 5.3 times more energy to be put into the coil before reaching the SAR limit and achieves nearly the same flip angle at the same input power when compared to a commercially available 8-channel head coil.