PROPOSAL OF CYLINDRICAL ROLLED-UP METAMATERIAL LENSES FOR MAGNETIC RESONANCE IMAGING APPLICATION AND PRELIMINARY EXPERIMENTAL DEMONSTRATION

In this paper, we propose a cylindrical rolled-up negative permeability metamaterial (MM) lens for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and some analyses are given. The proposed cylindrical MM lens is fabricated by rolling a MM slab (constituted with capacitive-loaded copper split rings) into a tube that resembles a hollow ring. It can focus the field of a magnetic line source, which can increase the penetration depth and improve the sensitivity of a surface coil. The proposed cylindrical MM lens can also improve the discrimination of the signals coming from two independent sources. A clinical experiment is carried out in a General Electric Signa 1.5 T MRI system in order to verify the focusing ability of the proposed device.