Signal-to-noise trade-offs between magnet diameter and shield-to-coil distance for cylindrical Halbach-based portable MRI systems for neuroimaging

To investigate the trade-off between magnet bore diameter and the distance between the conductive Faraday shield and RF head coil for low-field point-of-care neuroimaging systems.

Electromagnetic simulations were performed for three different Faraday shield geometries and two commonly used RF coil designs (spiral and solenoid) to assess the effects of a close-fitting shield on the RF coil's transmit and receive efficiencies. Experimental measurements were performed to confirm the accuracy of the simulations. Parallel simulations were performed to assess the static magnet ( \({B}_{0}\) $B_0$ ) field as a function of the magnet bore diameter. The obtainable SNR was then calculated as a function of these two related variables.

Simulations of the RF coil characteristics and \({B}_{1}^{+}\) $B_1^{+}$ transmit efficiencies agreed well with corresponding experimentally determined parameters. Overall, the RF coil transmit efficiency was, as expected, higher when the gap between the shield and coil increased. The calculated intrinsic SNR showed that maximum SNR would be obtained for a cylindrical shield of diameter 310 mm with an inner diameter of the magnet of 320 mm (assuming 10 mm for the gradient coils).

This work presents an overview of the trade-offs in transmit efficiencies for RF coils used for POC MRI neuroimaging as a function of coil-to-shield distance and inner diameter of the Halbach magnet. Results show that there is a relatively shallow optimum between a magnet diameter of 290 and 330 mm, with values falling more than 10% if either smaller or larger magnets are used.