William
Dominguez-Viqueira1,2, Marc Carias2, Giles E. Santyr2,3
1Imaging Laboratories, Robarts Research
Institute, London, Ontario, Canada; 2Department of Medical
Biophysics, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada; 3Department
of Medical Imaging, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada
SNR
at low magnetic field strength can be improved by reducing RF coil noise
using Litz wire coils. In this work the number of turns was optimized for
Litz wire coils for low field hyperpolarized noble gas imaging of rat lungs.
The comparison was conducted at 0.866 MHz and 2.385 MHz corresponding to
Larmor frequencies of 129Xe and 3He at 73.5 mT. The
quality factors and the signal to noise ratio (SNR) for each coil at each frequency
were measured. Results demonstrate the advantages of multiturn Litz wire
coils obtaining up to 300% improvement compared to copper coils.