Tesfai, Agazi Samuel, Johannes Fischer, Ali Caglar Özen, Patrick Eppenberger, Lena Oehrstroem, Frank Rühli, Ute Ludwig, and Michael Bock. “Multi-Parameter Analytical Method for B1 and SNR Analysis (MAMBA): An Open Source RF Coil Design Tool.” Journal of Magnetic Resonance 319 (October 2020): 106825.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmr.2020.106825.
In Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), radio frequency (RF) coils of different forms and shapes are used to maximize signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). RF coils are designed for clinical applications and have dimensions comparable with the target body part to be imaged, and they perform best when loaded by human tissue majority of which have conductivity values higher than 0.5 S/m. However, they are not properly tuned and matched for samples having low conductivity such as solid samples with low water content. Moreover, for samples with low filling factor and low conductivity, the noise in MRI is dominated by RF coil losses. In this case, RF coil design can be optimized to improve image SNR.