Theoretical signal-to-noise ratio of a slotted surface coil for magnetic resonance imaging

TL;DR

This paper derives an analytical expression for the signal-to-noise ratio of a slotted surface coil in MRI, demonstrating improved performance with more slots and potential advantages over circular coils for coil array applications.

Contribution

The paper provides the first analytical quasi-static expression for the SNR of a slotted surface coil with arbitrary slots, comparing its performance to circular coils.

Findings

SNR increases with the number of slots in the coil.

Slotted surface coil outperforms circular coil of similar size.

Performance improvement suggests suitability for coil array MRI applications.

Abstract

The analytical expression for the signal-to-noise ratio of a slotted surface coil with an arbitrary number of slots was derived using the quasi-static approach. This surface coil based on the vane-type magnetron tube. To study the coil perfomance, the theoretical signal-to-noise ratio predictions of this coil design were computed using a different number of slots. Results were also compared with theoretical results obtained for a circular coil with similar dimensions. It can be appreciated that slotted surface coil performance improves as the number of coils increases and, outperformed the circular-shaped coil. This makes it a good candidate for other MRI applications involving coil array techniques.