Magnetron Volume Coil for Magnetic Resonance Imaging of Rodents

Jaime Fabian Vazquez¹, Oscar Rene Marrufo¹, Sergio Enrique Solis¹, Silvia Sandra Hidalgo¹, Alfredo Odon Rodriguez¹

A transceiver volume coil with slotted end-rings and similar to the standard birdcage is proposed in this work. Unlike the traditional birdcage coil, our coil design was formed with two slotted surface coils connected via rungs like the traditional birdcage coil. The coil end-rings were formed with circular slots evenly distributed. A coil prototype was developed to work at 7T and quadrature driven for rat body imaging. Phantom images showed an important improvement in performance compared to the birdcage coil. Rat body images were acquired to prove the viability of this coil design for high field MRI applications.