Custom, spray coated receive coils for magnetic resonance imaging

Area of Science:

• Medical Imaging
• Materials Science
• Biomedical Engineering

Background:

• Patient-specific radio-frequency (RF) receive coils can enhance Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) signal-to-noise ratio (SNR).
• Current manufacturing methods often result in generic coil designs that do not optimally conform to individual patient anatomy.
• Additive manufacturing offers a pathway to create customized medical devices.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate a novel process for fabricating patient-specific MRI RF receive coil arrays using additive manufacturing.
• To optimize material selection and deposition techniques for high-performance resonant circuits.
• To evaluate the performance of a prototype patient-specific coil array for carotid imaging.

Main Methods:

• Utilized additive manufacturing (3D printing) for coil substrates.
• Employed spray deposition of silver nanoparticle inks for conductive traces and dielectric materials.
• Designed, fabricated, and tested a 4-channel neck array prototype for carotid imaging.
• Characterized materials (polystyrene dielectric, silver nanoparticle ink) for low loss properties.

Main Results:

• Demonstrated successful fabrication of resonant circuits using spray-deposited materials on 3D printed substrates.
• Confirmed that sprayed polystyrene forms a low-loss dielectric layer.
• Showed that coil performance is sample noise-dominated, not material loss-dominated, preserving high SNR.
• The prototype patient-specific coil achieved significantly higher SNR (5x periphery, 1.4x center) compared to a commercial coil on a custom neck phantom.

Conclusions:

• Additive manufacturing combined with spray deposition is a viable method for creating patient-specific MRI RF coils.
• Custom-fit coils fabricated with this process enhance diagnostic image quality and enable reproducible placement.
• This technology has the potential to improve MRI performance in clinical settings by optimizing SNR through personalized coil design.