Combination of travelling wave approach and microstrip transceiver coil arrays for MRI at 7T

To homogenize the B¹₊ field and decrease specific absorption rate (SAR) profile for MRI at 7T, more degrees of freedom are needed and different excitation approaches are required. Multi-channel transceiver arrays based on microstrip resonator (MSR) is a promising approach for signal excitation and reception at ultrahigh-field (UHF) MRI. Travelling wave approach is another method for excitation based on propagating modes excited from a circularly polarized antenna. In this paper, the combination between the two excitation approaches is presented. The combined approach will increase the number of transmit channels for parallel imaging. Results indicate that, such a combination should increase the B¹₊ field homogeneity and have a significant E/B¹₊ field ratio reduction at 7T.