IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING, VOL. 52, NO.

3, MARCH 2005 495

An Inverted-Microstrip Resonator for Human Head

Proton MR Imaging at 7 Tesla
Xiaoliang Zhang, Kamil Ugurbil, Robert Sainati, and Wei Chen*

Abstract—As an extension of the previously developed mi- biological sample can be significantly shortened and approach
crostrip transmission line (MTL) RF coil design, a high-frequency the coil dimension at ultrahigh fields. This fact could signif-
RF volume coil using multiple inverted MTL (iMTL) resonators icantly exacerbate the conductor loss and the radiation loss
for human head imaging at high magnetic field strength of 7 tesla
(T) is reported. Compared to conventional MTL resonators, iMTL in the traditional coils based on the lumped-element design
resonators can operate at higher frequency with lower losses and, resulting in low quality factor (Q) of the coil and thereby degra-
thus, are suitable for designs of high-frequency RF volume coils dation of coil’s performance and MR sensitivity. In addition,
with large coil size for human MR imaging and spectroscopy the phase variation of the current in the coil is expected to be
at high fields. An approach using capacitive terminations was more significant, implying a requirement of distributed-element
analyzed and applied to the design of the iMTL volume coil for im-
proving RF field homogeneity and broadening frequency-tuning design at high operating frequency.
range. A performance-comparison study was conducted between Currently, one popular choice of large volume coils for human
the prototype iMTL volume coil and a custom-built TEM volume MRI applications at such high field strengths of T is the TEM
coil at 7 T. The iMTL volume coil presents a comparable SNR resonator [2], [5]. While the TEM volume coil design shows a
B
and intrinsic 1 homogeneity to the TEM volume coil. Phantom good performance in human head MR imaging at 7 and 8 T,
and the human head images acquired using the iMTL volume
coil are also presented. The proposed iMTL volume coil provides its usable imaging region compared to its physical coil size is
an efficient and alternative solution to design high-frequency and relatively small. Also, the complexity of coil construction and
large-size volume coils for human MR applications at very high difficulties in coil tuning and operation could make the coil more
fields. robust.
Index Terms—High field, human brain, inverted microstrip Microstrip transmission line (MTL) or microstrip, introduced
transmission line resonator, MR imaging, MTL volume coil, RF a few decades ago [8]–[10], is a quasiplanar transmission line
coil.
which features low loss and high-frequency capability. Its semi-
open structure with high-frequency property benefits RF coil de-
I. INTRODUCTION signs for high-field MR applications. The feasibility of using the
MTL resonators for designing a variety of high-frequency RF
T HE introduction of whole-body ultrahigh field magnetic
resonance (MR) scanners [7 and 8 tesla (T)—the highest
magnetic field strength to date for human magnetic resonance
coils including both 300-MHz MTL surface coils and 170-MHz
MTL volume coils has been demonstrated for human head MR
imaging [11], [12]. The MTL coils are simple, efficient and easy
imaging (MRI) and magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS)]
to use for high-field MR applications. Another important merit
has opened new opportunities for obtaining high-resolution
of the MTL coils is its large usable imaging region compared to
anatomic imaging, mapping brain activation and studying
its physical coil size.
metabolism in humans due to the superior MR sensitivity and
The success of the 170-MHz MTL volume coil has paved
imaging contrast provided by ultrahigh magnetic field strengths
the way for further developing large volume coils for human
[1]–[7]. At a frequency level of 300 MHz (Larmor frequency
head imaging at higher resonant frequencies using quasiplanar
of proton at 7 T) or higher, however, many technical problems
MTL resonators. In this paper, an inverted MTL (iMTL) volume
relative to RF coil designs requiring a large coil size for human
coil design is introduced for human head MR applications at
MR applications become pronounced. The RF wavelength in a
7 T (300 MHz). Compared to the conventional MTL (i.e., non-
inverted MTL), the total loss (i.e., the sum of conductor loss,
Manuscript received January 15, 2004; revised July 17, 2004. This work was dielectric loss and radiation loss) of an inverted MTL is low.
supported in part by National Institutes of Health (NIH) under Grant EB00513,
Grant NS38070, Grant NS39043, Grant NS41262, Grant EB00329, and Grant For the same dimension and the same characteristic impedance,
P41 RR08079 (a National Research Resource grant from NIH), and in part by the conductor loss-which is usually the dominant loss-is sig-
the W. M. Keck Foundation and the MIND institute. Asterisk indicates corre- nificantly improved in the case of iMTL by a factor of 2–3
sponding author.
X. Zhang and K. Ugurbil are with the Center for Magnetic Resonance Re- [13]–[16]. In general, iMTL has a lower effective permittivity
search, Department of Radiology, the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, than the conventional MTL, which ultimately reduces the di-
MN 55455 USA (e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]). electric loss. Its unique structure of the dielectric material lo-
R. Sainati is with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engi-
neering, the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455 USA (e-mail: cating above the strip conductor leads to a smaller radiation loss
[email protected]). than the conventional MTL. With the same physical coil length
*W. Chen is with the Center for Magnetic Resonance Research, Department and same dielectric material (in this study, the dielectric mate-
of Radiology, the University of Minnesota, 2021 6th Street SE, Minneapolis,
MN 55455 USA (e-mail: [email protected]). rial used is Acrylic), the resonant frequency of the iMTL res-
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TBME.2004.842968 onator is about 30% higher than that of the conventional MTL
0018-9294/$20.00 © 2005 IEEE

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496 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING, VOL. 52, NO. 3, MARCH 2005

Fig. 1. (A) A cross-sectional view of an iMTL. (B) An open-circuited iMTL resonator (side view) and its equivalent circuit. (C) An iMTL resonator (side view)
with capacitive termination on one end and its equivalent circuit. (D) An iMTL resonator (side view) with capacitive termination on both ends and its equivalent
circuit that is used as one of the 16 resonant elements in the proposed iMTL volume coil.

resonator. All these favorable features make the iMTL resonator coplanar waveguide and conductor-backed coplanar waveguide)
a good candidate for designing high-frequency RF coils for in the inverted microstrip has the lowest losses [16], as well as
vivo MR applications at ultrahigh fields. an asymmetric structure as illustrated schematically in Fig. 1.
The iMTL volume coil presented in this paper demonstrates The effective permittivity of an inverted microstrip is given
the feasibility of using inverted microstrips as the resonant ele- by (1) for the case of the substrate thickness being much
ments to design large volume coils for the human head proton thicker than the strip conductor thickness [17]
imaging at 300 MHz.
(1)
II. MATERIALS AND METHODS
A. Basic Characteristics and Theory of the Inverted Microstrip where
Transmission Line
The inverted microstrip, a derivative from the conventional
microstrip, is initially developed for high-speed microwave in-
tegrated circuit applications. Among the commonly used quasi-
planar transmission lines (e.g., microstrip, inverted microstrip,

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ZHANG et al.: INVERTED-MICROSTRIP RESONATOR FOR HUMAN HEAD PROTON MR IMAGING 497

and and are defined in Fig. 1(A). The characteristic TABLE I

impedance of the inverted microstrip can then be approximated CALCULATED AND MEASURED RESONANT FREQUENCIES WITH VARIOUS
CAPACITANCE VALUE OF THE TERMINATION CAPACITOR (MTL SUBSTRATE:
as [17] = =
TEFLON WITH W 7 mm, H 5 mm, and l 35 cm) =
(2)

where

A standard open-circuited MTL or iMTL resonator [see

Fig. 1(B)] is characterized by a nonuniform current distribution
along the transmission line (strong in the center and weak at the
two open ends), which eventually results in the inhomogeneous
distributions generated by MTL or iMTL volume coils along
the coil axis. An efficient approach to overcoming this limit is
the use of capacitive termination(s) at the end(s) of the MTL or
iMTL resonators [18]. With the termination capacitor, the cur-
rent at the end of the microstrip resonator is no longer zero but
a certain value which is determined by the termination capaci-
tance. The increased current can result in a more homogeneous
distribution along the microstrip resonator that eventually resonant frequency of an MTL coil in a wide range, which usu-
yields a more uniform z-directional field of the volume coil ally is difficult to achieve for a high-frequency volume coil with
[18], [19]. large coil size.
Similarly, a more general equation was derived for calculating
B. Capacitively Terminated Microstrip Resonators the resonant frequency of the MTL resonator terminated capac-
The current distribution, magnetic field pattern, and resonant itively at the two ends as following:
frequency of a open-circuited MTL resonator with capaci-
tive termination(s) at either one end or both ends-a useful treat- (5)
ment in the MTL RF coil design-were investigated. When a
open-circuited microstrip resonator is connected to a capacitive where and are the capacitance of the termination capac-
termination, as illustrated in Fig. 1(C), its input impedance is itors of the microstrip resonator as shown in Fig. 1(D). Obvi-
given by ously, when , which is the case of MTL resonator with
capacitive termination at one end, (5) becomes (4). When both
(3) and , which is the case of open-circuited MTL
resonator, (5) becomes
where is the characteristic impedance of an MTL;
is the propagation constant of the MTL; is (6)
the length of the MTL resonator; where
is the capacitance of the termination capacitor applied to an If one assumes that the incident voltage at the input port of the
MTL resonator. Applying the resonant condition of a parallel MTL resonator is , the absolute value of the current at any
resonant circuit to (3), the resonant frequency of the point z along the microstrip resonator at its resonant frequency
MTL resonator terminated capacitively at one end is given by will be

(4) (7)

where is the speed of light. Based on (4), a Matlab® (The Math- where is the phase angle of the reflect coefficient at the
Works, Natick, MA) code was written to numerically compute terminating port and for
the resonant frequency of the microstrip resonator with capac- the case with one termination capacitor. The calculated current
itive termination at one end. Table I shows the computed and distribution along an MTL resonator terminated with a different
measured values of the resonant frequency with different termi- capacitance value ranging from 0.5 pF to 10 pF was plotted in
nated capacitances ranging from 0.5 pF to 10 pF. An excellent Fig. 2(A) by using a Matlab program based on (7).
agreement between the computed and measured values ( % The amplitude of the magnetic field (H) along the MTL res-
difference) was obtained. Furthermore, Table I reveals that the onator is given by
resonant frequency of an MTL resonator is very sensitive to the
value of its termination capacitance. Varying the termination ca-
(8)
pacitance could be an efficient way for changing (or tuning) the

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498 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING, VOL. 52, NO. 3, MARCH 2005

Fig. 3. Transverse GRE images and their 1-D profiles acquired from a mineral
oil phantom using open-circuited square-shaped single-turn MTL surface coil
(A) and capacitance (3 pF) terminated square-shaped single-turn MTL surface
coil (B). GRE image parameters were TR = 0:5 s, TE = 3:5 ms, NEX = 1,
2
and FOV = 20 20 cm .

The MTL resonator with capacitive terminations on both ends

was experimentally studied. The result showed that the field
variation of the MTL resonator was sensitive to the values of ter-
mination capacitance. With capacitance values as low as 1 pF,
the variation (i.e., the ratio between maximal and minimal
Fig. 2. (A) Plot shows the current distribution along an MTL resonator ) along the MTL resonator was already reduced by a factor
terminated (on one end) with a different value of capacitance ranging from of 5–6, as illustrated in Fig. 2(C). As expected, the two-end ter-
0.5 pF to 10 pF. The current at the termination end (on the right side in
this figure) increases with the terminated capacitance value. (B) Measured minated MTL resonator improves the fields around its end
magnetic field along an MTL resonator terminated (on one end) with a different areas and yields a more homogenous distribution than the
capacitance ranging from 0 pF to 10 pF. The results show the same trend as one-end terminated or open-circuited MTL resonator.
the current. (C) Both ends of MTL terminated with 1 pF. H  4H
To further evaluate the relationship between the termination
over the strip length of 36 cm. Note: in the case of one end termination
(2pF): H  23 H . Diameter of pick-up coil or sniffer used for these capacitor and field distribution along the resonator by using
measurements was 1.4 cm, and the distance between the center of the sniffer MR imaging approach, a one-turn MTL surface coil (square
and the surface of the strip conductor was 2 cm.
shape) was built and tuned to 300 MHz (i.e., the H Larmor
frequency at 7 T) [11]. Two images of a mineral oil phantom
where is the perpendicular distance from the MTL resonator. were acquired on a newly developed 7 T/90-cm horizontal bore
The magnetic field pattern as illustrated in Fig. 2(B) was ob- human MR scanner. As indicated in Fig. 3, a more symmetric
tained experimentally by the transmission coefficient mea- image was obtained from the square-shaped MTL coil with a
surement taken on a network analyzer (Hewlett Packard Model 3-pF termination, implying that a reduced variation in along
4396A) with a 1.4-cm shielded sniffer, an inductive loop made the MTL coil was readily achieved by using the capacitive
of a coaxial cable with solid-copper shield. As expected, the termination.
magnetic field distribution has a trend similar to the current. All studies on the conventional MTL resonators with capaci-
The termination capacitor increases the magnetic field strength tive terminations suggested that it is advantageous to use capac-
near the capacitor and improves the field homogeneity along the itor-terminated MTL resonators in the high-frequency volume
MTL resonator. coil designs. This conclusion as well as (3)–(8) can be applied
In RF volume coil designs, it is desired that the resonant el- to other kinds of quasiplanar transmission line, including the
ements of the volume coil can provide a relatively uniform RF iMTL, which shows superior performance at high frequencies
field distribution along the coil axis. It is noticed that al- [16].
though the aforementioned MTL resonator with capacitive ter-
mination at one end increased the on the termination side, the C. Design of the iMTL Volume Coil
field near the other end of the MTL resonator was still weak The proposed iMTL volume coil was formed by 16 indepen-
as illustrated in Fig. 2(B). To make the MTL resonator better dent (primary resonance) iMTL resonators (i.e., resonant
for serving as a resonant element used in an RF volume coil, elements). Electromagnetic coupling among the 16 iMTL res-
a stronger magnetic field near both ends of the MTL resonator onators makes the entire iMTL volume coil resonate at the de-
is required. This requirement can be achieved by capacitively sired frequency and desired mode. Theoretically, there is no
terminating the MTL resonator at both ends, instead of one end. need to have any physical connections among the iMTL reso-
When using the both-end capacitive terminated MTL resonators nant elements because all iMTL elements can be coupled induc-
to build volume coils, these two capacitive terminations can also tively if the mutual couplings among the elements are sufficient.
store the strong electric field on the two ends of the volume coils, The resonant frequency of the desired mode of the iMTL
thereby reducing subject heating, which is critical in in vivo MR volume coil can be derived based on the approach employed in
studies, especially for human MR applications. the literature [20]. For an iMTL volume coil with resonant

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ZHANG et al.: INVERTED-MICROSTRIP RESONATOR FOR HUMAN HEAD PROTON MR IMAGING 499

elements, its current on resonant elements has a cosinusoidal

distribution and, thus, satisfies the following relation

(9)

According to Kirchhoff’s Voltage Law and (9), we have

.. .. ..
. . .

(10)
..
.

where and represents the equivalent inductance and ca-

pacitance of the iMTL resonant element, respectively; is
the coupling coefficient between resonant elements i and j
( and ); is the resonant
frequency of the entire iMTL volume coil in radian unit and
is the resonant frequency of the entire iMTL volume
coil in Hz unit. Note that
and was applied in this work, and only 8 coupling
coefficients need to be determined for
calculating the resonant frequency of the iMTL volume coil
due to the coil’s circular symmetry. These coefficients can be
readily measured experimentally.
The resonant frequency of the iMTL volume coil with
iMTL resonant elements can be derived from (10) as

(11)

where is the resonant frequency of a single iMTL resonant

element that can be calculated by (5).
Fig. 4(A) and (B) shows the schematically cross-sectional
view and photo picture of the prototype iMTL volume coil
consisting of 16 iMTL resonant elements, respectively. This
coil was built on two coaxial acrylic tubes with dimensions
of 30.3-cm outer diameter (O.D.) by 29.7-cm inner diameter
(I.D.) and 26-cm O.D. by 25.4-cm I.D., respectively. The
(small) inner tube served as a dielectric material of the iMTL
resonant elements while the outer tube was a supporter of the
ground plane of the coil. Although acrylic has a greater loss Fig. 4. A cross-section (A) and photograph (B) of the prototype iMTL volume
tangent than that of Teflon, it is inexpensive and readily coil for imaging the human head at 7 T, corresponding resonant frequency of
available with a desired geometry. The strip conductors of 16 300 MHz. For comparison, a custom-built 300-MHz head TEM resonator with
no end-cap (C) was used in this paper.
iMTL resonant elements, made from adhesive-backed copper
foil with a width of 2.54-cm, a thickness of 36- m and a
length of 18-cm (3 M, St Paul, MN), were taped equidis- the inner surface of the outer acrylic tube. Each resonant
tantly on the outer surface of the inner acrylic tube. Each element was an iMTL resonator terminated by two capacitors
resonant element had an identical dimension of cm, ( pF and pF) on its two ends. These termi-
cm, and cm [see the parameter definitions nation capacitors, which were made from the commercial FR4
in Fig. 1(A)], yielding . The ground plane, printed-circuit board, store undesired electric fields on the two
which was made from 18- m-thick copper foil (Oak-Mitsui ends of the coil. Compared to Teflon, FR4 has a relatively high
Inc., Hoosick Falls, NY), was pasted with silicon rubber on loss tangent, which could degrade the quality factor Q of the

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500 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING, VOL. 52, NO. 3, MARCH 2005

coil. But again, it is inexpensive and readily available. The elec- cm , and . In the human head ex-
tromagnetic coupling among the 16 iMTL resonant elements periments, due to the different load, which usually leads to a fre-
achieved by the use of a relatively large ( cm) enables quency shift and impedance mismatch, the coil was retuned and
the whole iMTL volume coil to resonate at the desired mode rematched. For demonstration, a GRE human head image with
and frequency. The coil operated in quadrature with connection a relatively long TR of 2 s was acquired. The other acquisition
of a 3-dB 90 quadrature hybrid (KDI/Triangle, Whippany, parameters used were: ms,
NJ) in order to generate a circularly polarized field for mm, cm , and
efficient nuclear spin excitations and detections. The two driven .
elements of the iMTL volume coil were 90 apart in phase. To further validate the performance of the proposed iMTL
Frequency tuning and field adjustment of the iMTL volume volume coil, a comparison study between the iMTL volume coil
coil could be achieved by varying the termination capacitors and a TEM volume coil [without end-cap as shown in Fig. 4(C)]
together or individually. At the 300-MHz level, coil’s resonance built in our lab was conducted at 7 T. The TEM coil measured
frequency is sensitive to the sample load. Upon completion 34-cm in O.D. (RF shielding or cavity), 26.7-cm in I.D. (reso-
of coarse coil tuning, the frequency shift due to different load nant elements), and 18-cm in length (resonant elements). As a
can be fine tuned by the two termination capacitors connected standard TEM coil, this custom-built TEM coil had the end-ring
to the driven ends of each quadrature driven element with at each end of the coil, which further reduced possible radia-
an unrecognizable perturbation. The impedance match of tion loss. The diameters of inner and outer conductors of the
the coil was implemented by a variable capacitor (Voltronics, coaxial line used in the TEM coil were 0.63-cm and 1.43-cm,
Denville, NJ) connected serially to the strip conductor of the respectively. Teflon tubes with a low loss tangent of
driven iMTL element. When the termination capacitances ( were employed to serve as dielectric materials of the coaxial
and ) were set to zero for all the iMTL resonant elements lines. The use of end-rings and the low-loss material, Teflon,
(i.e., open-circuited iMTL resonator), the iMTL volume coil gives a favorite to the TEM volume coil in the performance
could operate at a frequency of higher than 600 MHz. comparison. The overlap between the inner conductor and the
The iMTL volume coil is a multimodal resonator. The de- outer conductor of the coaxial line (i.e., the length of the coaxial
sired mode for MR applications was identified by transmis- line) measured 2.1 cm on each end of the coaxial line and,
sion coefficient measurement taken on a Hewlett Packard thus, the length of the outer conductor (i.e., the copper tube)
Model 4396A network analyzer with a 2-cm shielded sniffer. between the two coaxial lines was 13.8 cm. The coil length and
The unloaded and loaded Q factors were measured using the the inner diameter of the TEM coil were comparable to that of
two-sniffer method suggested in the literature [21]. The the iMTL coil (26 cm in I.D. and 18 cm in length). The TEM
measurement was also used to measure the electric isolation be- coil was operated at optimal condition. The electric isolation be-
tween the two quadrature-driving elements at the designed fre- tween its two quadrature-driving ports was better than dB
quency of 300 MHz. in the loaded case. In the scattering parameter measure-
ment, each driving port showed a better than dB reflec-
D. MRI Experiments tion coefficient, indicating a good impedance match. A com-
All MRI experiments on phantom and the human head were parison approach similar to that used in the literatures [5], [12]
performed on a Magnex 7 T/90–cm horizontal bore whole was applied herein. To evaluate the homogeneity of the image
body magnet (Magnex Scientific, Abingdon, UK) interfaced to acquired, MR signal intensity variation (SIV) was defined as
a Varian INOVA console (Varian Associates, Palo Alto, Cali- % where is the relative MR
fornia). The system was equipped with a Magnex 37.9-cm I.D., signal intensity in the center area of image; is the average of
torque-balanced, and self-shielded gradient coil set driven by the MR signal intensity in four peripheral areas of image;
a Siemens gradient amplifier (Siemens, Erlangen, Germany). is the arithmetical average of all five measured signal intensity
The phantom was a cylindrical plastic bottle (15-cm diameter values on the image. Two sagittal GRE images across the center
and 25–cm length) filled with mineral oil. Mineral oil was se- of the mineral oil phantom were acquired with exactly the same
lected for making the phantom due to the low values of relative acquisition parameters using the prototype iMTL volume coil
dielectric constant and conductivity. These features of mineral and the TEM volume coil, respectively. These images and their
oil provide less subject-related variation at high fields, one-dimensional (1-D) intensity profiles were used to locate the
such as dielectric resonance effect and limited RF-penetration position for acquiring an image slice in the transverse plane,
problem, which are usually clearly visible in a high dielectric which showed the strongest MR signal intensity along the axial
and conductive subject such as saline water and human brain, direction of the coil. The transverse GRE images located in this
and eventually yield a more accurate evaluation of the intrinsic position were acquired at fully relaxed condition with exactly
distribution of the proposed coil in the absence of biological the same imaging acquisition parameters using the two coils,
sample loading. respectively, for the purpose of MR sensitivity comparison.
A set of fully relaxed gradient recalled echo (GRE) images
in three orientations (transverse, sagittal and coronal) was ac-
III. RESULTS
quired from the mineral oil phantom using the iMTL volume
coil. The imaging parameters were: repetition time The prototype iMTL volume coil photographed in Fig. 4(B)
s, echo time ms, was tuned for human head imaging at 7 T. A reflection coef-
mm, ficient parameter of better than dB obtained at each

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ZHANG et al.: INVERTED-MICROSTRIP RESONATOR FOR HUMAN HEAD PROTON MR IMAGING 501

Fig. 6. Fully relaxed gradient recalled echo (GRE) images collected using the
iMTL volume coil from a mineral oil phantom in the (A) transverse, (B) sagittal,
and (C) coronal orientations at 7 T. The 1-D profile showing on the top of
each image reflects the iMTL coil’s intrinsic B field distribution. A fairly
uniform B was achieved in the transverse plane. Asymmetric 1-D profile of B
distribution in the sagittal and coronal images verifies the effect of termination
capacitance of the iMTL resonant element on the B field along the coil axis
[for the 1-D profiles in (B) and (C), less termination capacitance on the left and
greater capacitance on the right].

This distribution was similar to that of the TEM volume coil

at the same operation frequency, although the structure of the
iMTL volume coil was much simpler. From the sagittal and
coronal images presented herein, an improved distribution
and ROI coverage along the coil axis, i.e., z-axis, was observed
for the iMTL volume coil at 7 T in contrast to the MTL volume
coil design at 4 T [12]. This improvement resulted directly from
Fig. 5. (A) Transmission coefficient S measurement between the two the two-end capacitive terminations used in the iMTL volume
quadrature-driving ports of the iMTL volume coil. An excellent electric
0
isolation of better than 58 dB between the quadrature ports was obtained in
coil design. The asymmetry of the image intensity along the coil
the loaded case at 297.6 MHz. (B) The reflection coefficient S plot of one axis shown in Fig. 6(B) and (C) experimentally verifies the the-
of the iMTL volume coil’s driving ports in the loaded case obtained from the oretical analysis of MTL resonator with capacitive terminations
network analyzer. The desired resonance mode (pointed by an arrow in the
figure) was identified by the 2-cm shielded sniffer.
discussed previously in Section II, where a large value of the ter-
mination capacitor leading to an increased significantly near
the end connected the capacitor [on the right sides in Fig. 6(B)
quadrature-driving port indicated that the coil was well matched and (C)] was observed.
to the system impedance of 50 . According to the transmission A performance-comparison study (emphasized on SNR of
coefficient measurement as shown in Fig. 5(A), the pro- the MR image uniformity) was conducted between the proto-
totype iMTL volume coil achieved an excellent electric isola- type iMTL volume coil and the custom-built TEM volume coil
tion of greater than dB between the two quadrature-driving (without end-cap) at 7 T. Fig. 7(A) and (B) shows the two trans-
ports in the loaded case (with the human head) at MHz for verse GRE images with exactly the same imaging parameters
this individual measurement. The unloaded Q value of the iMTL and setup using the iMTL volume coil and the TEM volume
volume coil was 206. When the coil was loaded with the human coil, respectively. Quantitatively, the relative values of the MR
head, the Q value dropped to 97. signal intensity in the five different locations in the two im-
To summarize and compare the two coils, Table II lists the ages were measured from five boxes with the same box size of
commonly interesting results of the bench test between the pro- 10 10 5 mm as shown in Fig. 7(A) and (B). The average
posed iMTL volume coil and the TEM volume coil at two dif- value of signal intensity in the peripheral image areas was 54.0
ferent Larmor frequencies of proton at 7 T and 8 T. It indicates for the iMTL volume coil and 54.5 for the TEM volume coil.
similar performance. The results shown in Table II also verify In the center region of the images, the values of signal inten-
that a high degree ( to dB) of electric isolation between sity were 49.1 for the iMTL volume coil and 49.3 for the TEM
the two quadrature-driving ports of the large volume coil can be volume coil. For both images, background noise was at the same
obtained at very high frequency levels of 300 and 340 MHz. level. Based on these two images, MR signal intensity variation
The multimodal resonance behavior of the proposed iMTL (SIV) in the transverse plane was also calculated for both coils
volume coil was observed with the measurement taken on ( % for the iMTL volume coil; % for the
the network analyzer, as shown in Fig. 5(B). The resonance TEM resonator). These results indicate a similar homogeneity
mode with a homogeneous field, which is desired for MR of the intrinsic fields between the two coils in the transverse
applications, was distinguished by using the measurement plane.
with the 2-cm shielded sniffer. This desired resonance mode had A proton-density-weighted human head image acquired from
the second lowest frequency among all the modes resonating in a healthy volunteer using the prototype iMTL volume coil is
the volume coil. From the long TR (10 s) mineral oil phantom shown in Fig. 7(C). A nominal flip angle in the whole
images acquired (see Fig. 6), the iMTL volume coil had a homo- head required a 124-watt, 2-ms Gaussian RF pulse. This image
geneous distribution of intrinsic field in the transverse plane. clearly exhibits the dielectric resonance effect (stronger signal

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502 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING, VOL. 52, NO. 3, MARCH 2005

TABLE II
BENCH TEST RESULTS OF THE BASIC COIL PARAMETERS OF THE PROPOSED iMTL VOLUME COIL AND THE CUSTOM-MADE TEM VOLUME COIL (WITHOUT
END-CAP) AT TWO DIFFERENT PROTON LARMOR FREQUENCIES CORRESPONDING APPROXIMATELY TO 7 T (297 MHz) AND 8 T (340 MHz), RESPECTIVELY

Fig. 7. SNR comparison between the proposed iMTL volume coil and the custom-built TEM resonator without end-cap at 7 T. Two fully relaxed GRE mineral-oil
phantom images with the same acquisition parameters were collected using the iMTL volume coil (A) and the TEM resonator (B). For demonstration, a proton
density image of the human head was acquired using the prototype iMTL coil (C).

intensity in the center area of the image) in the human head imaging at 7 T. Although the TEM volume coil has been applied
at 7 T when using the iMTL volume coil that possesses a ho- at such high-field strength, the iMTL coil provides an alterna-
mogeneous intrinsic distribution as indirectly illustrated in tive and efficient approach to designs of high-frequency volume
Fig. 6(A). This image inhomogeneity problem in the human coils. The MTL or iMTL coil design associated with simplicity
head resulting from the dielectric resonance effect at high fields of coil construction, ease of use, large usable space inside the
could be potentially diminished by the pre-emphasis (or coil and high coil efficacy will reduce the technical difficulties
shimming) approach proposed in previous work [12], [22], [23]. in RF coil designs for numerous applications of in vivo MR at
ultrahigh fields.
Use of two-end capacitive terminations in the iMTL resonant
IV. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
elements efficiently increases the fields near the two ends
The iMTL volume coil presented in this article demonstrates of the iMTL volume coil, and improves imaging coverage and
the feasibility of using iMTL resonant elements to design high- homogeneity along the coil axis. A very broad range of fre-
frequency volume coils with large coil size for human head MR quency tuning can be achieved by varying the capacitance of

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ZHANG et al.: INVERTED-MICROSTRIP RESONATOR FOR HUMAN HEAD PROTON MR IMAGING 503

each capacitive termination. The homogeneous intrinsic dis- of RF coils including surface coils [11] and volume coils [12],
tribution of the iMTL coil in the transverse plane implies that as well as multiple coil systems. In the TEM resonator [5], its
the considerable amount of field was released toward the resonant element consists of the shielding conductor and two
coil center with a relatively larger thickness of (2.1 cm) com- coaxial transmission lines separated by a conductor tube. Its
pared to that used in the 170-MHz MTL volume coil design [12] coaxial transmission lines are only parts of its resonant element.
where a small (0.6 cm) was chosen to generate an inhomo- Without the shielding conductor, the coaxial lines are unable to
geneous intrinsic field pattern in order to compensate for the resonate at (or nearby) the desired resonant frequency. Another
dielectric resonance effect in human head at 4 T. This finding distinction of the MTL and/or iMTL resonator is its asymmetric
further verifies that the distribution in the transverse plane of structure of the resonant element that does not support the TEM
an MTL or iMTL coil could be changed by varying the thickness wave, but the quasi-TEM wave. This is different from the TEM
of the applied dielectric material or the ratio of , which resonator or shielded birdcage coil, which operates in the TEM
was presented in previous work [12]. Apparently, the proton modes.
Larmor frequency at 7 T is much higher than that at 4 T and, The coupling coefficient among iMTL (or MTL) resonant el-
thus, the dielectric resonance effect in the human head becomes ements is a function of the thickness [12]. With the width
more severe. To generate relatively uniform signal intensity in of the strip conductor used in this work, a smaller ratio
the human head image at 7 T, the dimension of the iMTL yields a stronger electromagnetic coupling among the resonant
volume coil should be reduced, thereby resulting in a more com- elements. This coupling is necessary to make the whole volume
pact coil size, which is also desired for high-field human MR coil resonate with no physical connections among the resonant
applications where the usable space inside the magnet is tightly elements. With the increase of ratio or decrease of ,
limited. the resonant elements tend to decouple each other. In this case,
The two highly decoupled quadrature-driving ports of the one has to use a different approach to make whole volume coil
iMTL volume coil reveal that an excellent electric isolation up resonate, as demonstrated in previous report [12]. On the other
to dB between the quadrature-driving ports of a large RF hand, this character of decoupling among the iMTL (or MTL)
volume coil can be achieved at the 300- or 340–MHz level in resonant elements with a smaller thickness could be a great
the loaded case. Potentially, the unloaded Q value of the pro- merit in designing multiple receiver or transceiver RF coil sys-
posed iMTL volume coil could be further increased. As men- tems with well designed mutual decoupling among the resonant
tioned above, the capacitive terminations on both ends of the elements for serving multiple RF coils. Such RF coil systems
coil store substantial electric fields. Thus, the loss of the termi- have a significant impact on parallel MR imaging [24] using
nation capacitors used becomes an important factor affecting the a variety of approaches, such as the SiMultaneous Acquisition
coil’s unloaded Q value. To diminish such a loss, high Q capac- of Spatial Harmonics (SMASH) and the SENSitivity Encoding
itors are suggested. At this high frequency level of 300 MHz, (SENSE) [25], [26] when the decoupled resonant elements in
radiation loss is prominent for large volume coils. While the the MTL or iMTL volume coil are driven individually and each
ground plane of the iMTL resonant elements of the coil signif- resonant element can become an independent receiver and/or
icantly reduces the radiation loss, the addition of end rings to transceiver coil channel.
both ends of the iMTL or MTL coil, which connect electrically In summary, this article demonstrates a novel and simple ap-
to the ground plane, would further reduce radiation loss and, proach of using iMTL resonant elements for designing a large
ultimately, increase coil’s unloaded Q value. With the increase human head volume coil operating at 300 MHz. The same ap-
of the operating frequency, the dielectric loss starts to play an proaches reported in this article can be readily applied to design
important role in the coil losses. To reduce the dielectric loss, volume coils operating at ultrahigh fields of T through the
a low-loss dielectric material, such as Teflon, is apparently de- reduction of the terminated capacitance or even at relatively low
sired in the MTL or iMTL coil design. Nevertheless, the sensi- fields, such as 3 and 4 T, through the use of large terminated ca-
tivity comparison performed in this study showed that the pro- pacitance. Therefore, the concept using MTL resonators would
totype iMTL coil still achieved a comparable sensitivity level to provide an alternative and important framework for designing a
the custom-built TEM coil although the iMTL had no end-rings variety of RF coils that can be applied to a wide range of field
to further reduce the radiation loss (two end-rings were used in strength for numerous MRI/MRS applications.
the TEM coil) and used the lossy FR4 (loss tangent 0.015 versus
0.0003 of Teflon used in the TEM coil) as the dielectric material
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