Wideband Tapered Microstrip Transmission Line (MTL) Volume Coil for 1.5T MRI Scanner

Wide bandwidth is a key requirement for Radio Frequency (RF) coils in the emerging body-part-dedicated portable Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) due to the static field inhomogeneity caused by a short magnet. As the size of the magnet, either a superconducting magnet or a permanent magnet array (PMA), is reduced, the B ₀ field homogeneity is reduced significantly. The lowered B ₀ field homogeneity leads to an increase in the working bandwidth. A wideband RF coil helps to guarantee the excitation and reception of signals within a targeted field of view (FoV). In this paper, we propose single-tapered and dual-tapered wideband Microstrip Transmission Line (MTL) volume coil for a 1.5T MRI system with a short magnet. The fractional Full Width at Half Maximum (FWHM) bandwidth for the proposed tapered and dual tapered coils are 11.25% and 10.62%, respectively, which are 28.57% and 21.4% higher than that of the traditional non-tapered MTL volume coil, yet having a comparable B ₁ field intensity.