Phased array imaging on a 4.7T/33cm animal research system

Although phased array technology has been standard on clinical magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) systems for many years, it is just now becoming available on small animal MRI systems. Bruker Instruments Ltd. has recently provided multiple rf channels on a 4.7T/33cm Avance, but further development was necessary to complete the phased array implementation. This work discusses the development of this other hardware, specifically the rf array coil, low impedance preamplifiers, excitation coil, and image combination algorithm. Comparison of the array coil to a quadrature coil indicates superior signal-to-noise ratio from the array. In vivo images of a cat spine acquired simultaneously from the individual channels of the array and a sum of squares combination are shown. (C) 2001 American Institute of Physics.