Flexible and compact hybrid metasurfaces for enhanced ultra high field in vivo magnetic resonance imaging

Sci Rep. 2017 May 10;7(1):1678. doi: 10.1038/s41598-017-01932-9.

Abstract

Developments in metamaterials and related structures such as metasurfaces have opened up new possibilities in designing materials and devices with unique properties. Here we report a new hybrid metasurface structure, comprising a two-dimensional metamaterial surface and a very high permittivity dielectric substrate, that has been designed to enhance the local performance of an ultra-high field MRI scanner. This new flexible and compact resonant structure is the first metasurface which can be integrated with multi-element close-fitting receive coil arrays that are used for all clinical MRI scans. We demonstrate the utility of the metasurface acquiring in-vivo human brain images and proton MR spectra with enhanced local sensitivity on a commercial 7 Tesla system.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Computer Simulation
  • Electromagnetic Fields*
  • Humans
  • Magnetic Resonance Imaging / methods*
  • Phantoms, Imaging
  • Spectrum Analysis