Human-body coil design for magnetic resonance imaging at 7 tesla

In this paper, we propose a design of a 7 Tesla magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) whole-body coil. We describe some important features of the coil, both from a mechanical and electromagnetic perspective. We show the results of optimizing the coil´s excitation sources in a near-field phased-array manner that minimizes the standard deviation of the circularly polarized component of the transverse magnetic field, which is responsible for exciting the spins, across various cross-sections of the human body. Successful optimizations of full cross-sectional slices of the body located in the coil, as well as optimizations useful for localized imaging of a particular organ (in this case chosen to be the liver), are provided. By demonstrating the dramatic improvement in the performance of this coil utilizing the proposed complex excitation system, we show that whole-body 7 Tesla coil is physically feasible as well as probable, demonstrating great potential for future clinical and research imaging applications