Materials and methods for higher performance screen-printed flexible MRI receive coils.

Area of Science:

• Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI)
• Materials Science
• Electrical Engineering

Background:

• Screen-printed coils offer potential for flexible, low-cost MRI receive coils.
• Characterizing material properties is crucial for optimizing coil performance and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR).

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop methods for characterizing materials in screen-printed MRI coils.
• To improve the SNR of screen-printed coils using novel, lower-loss materials.

Main Methods:

• Fabricated coils using screen printing on various plastic substrates.
• Measured unloaded and loaded quality factor (Q) and performed 3T MRI scans.
• Developed a method to correlate coil Q with image SNR.

Main Results:

• Printed coils with optimized substrates achieved up to 97% of the SNR of traditional coils.
• Successfully correlated coil Q_Unloaded with image SNR.
• A proof-of-concept printed eight-channel array produced images comparable to a commercial 12-channel array.

Conclusions:

• Proposed methods and materials enable printed MRI coils to achieve SNR levels close to commercial coils.
• The new fabrication technique offers greater flexibility and patient contact.
• This advancement facilitates the development of advanced, patient-specific MRI hardware.