A NOVEL-APPROACH TO THE CALCULATION OF RF MAGNETIC AND ELECTRIC-FIELDS FOR NMR COILS OF ARBITRARY GEOMETRY

This paper presents a novel approach for determining the magnetic and electric fields generated by NMR RF coils of arbitrary shape, Maxwell's equations are solved using Helmholtz retarded potentials, The model incorporates the effects of radiofrequencies and allows the calculation of both electric and magnetic fields at any position, Discussion of the numerical evaluation of the resulting formulas is presented, A comparison of the numerical results with an exact solution is made for the case of a singular circular loop of wire, Theoretical results for a birdcage coil are also given. This approach provides fast, accurate results and will easily lend itself to coil optimization. (C) 1995 Academic Press, Inc.