A ultra high field multi-element transceive volume array for small animal MRI

In this work, a dedicated, 9.4T shielded 8-element transceive volume-array for large rat MRI applications is designed and the prototype constructed. Angularly oriented radiating structured coil elements are used. It is shown that by orienting the radiating conductors of the coil element angularly, the RF penetration depth can be increased and the mutual coupling effect can be regulated to minimum. In addition, experimental results show that the prototype can produce homogenous B1 field and is well suited for the Transmit SENSE application and the GRAPPA parallel imaging technique.