Radiofrequency coils for magnetic resonance microscopy

Given the several orders of magnitude fewer spins per voxel for MR microscopy than for conventional MRI, efficient coil design is important to obtain sufficient signal-to-noise within reasonable data acquisition times. As MR microscopy is typically performed using very high magnetic fields, coil design must also incorporate the effects of increased component losses and skin-depth-dependent resistance, as well as radiation losses and phase effects for coils when conductor dimensions constitute a substantial fraction of the electromagnetic wavelength. For samples much less than 1 mm in size, wire solenoids or microfabricated planar coils are used. For samples with diameters of several millimeters, saddle, birdcage, Alderman-Grant or millipede coils become the preferred choice. Recent advances in multiple-coil probes and phased arrays have been used to reduce data acquisition time and/or increase sample throughput, and small superconducting coils have shown significant improvements in signal-to-noise over equivalently sized room-temperature coils. Copyright (C) 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.