Improving the Sensitivity of Individually Shielded Elements of RF Transceiver Array Coils Using Dielectric Materials in MRI

Yunsuo Duan¹, Bradley S. Peterson¹, Feng Liu¹, Alayar Kangarlu¹

Decoupling by individualy shielding coil elements provides desired isolations between the coil elements of transceiver array coils. However, it severely degrades the sensitivity of the coil element. We propose to improve the coil sensitivity by inserting dielectric media between the coil elements and the shields. The results shows that the sensitivity can be improved form 32% to 86% while maintaining the good isolation.