Eight-channel transmit/receive head array for use with ultra-low output impedance amplifiers

Parallel transmit technology for magnetic resonance imaging can mitigate the challenges with the transmit field (B₁) inhomogeneity and capture the increased signal-to-noise ratio benefit at high field strengths. Most of the available parallel transmit systems use conventional amplifier architectures with array coils that employ complex decoupling methods to isolate the individual elements. Current sources and ultra-low output impedance amplifiers offer the advantage of providing some additional decoupling to the array elements, allowing more flexibility in the array design. We present our work designing and building an eight-channel transmit/receive head array to work with ultralow output impedance amplifiers on a 3 Tesla GE clinical scanner.