An Improved Design of Detection Coil for Magnetic Particle Imaging

The detection coil is one of the most crucial components in a magnetic particle imaging (MPI) scanner. The sensitivity homogeneity of the detection coil is an important parameter that affect the quantifiability of MPI. In this paper, an improved design of the detection coil is proposed to optimize the homogeneity of the coil sensitivity with simulation and experiments. Both solenoid and saddle coil models are simulated to investigate the influence of the length and turn number of the coil on the homogeneity. Afterward, the designed coil is built and used in an MPI scanner for phantom experiments. The homogeneity of the sensitivity and system matrix of the MPI scanner is measured to evaluate the performance of the designed coils. Experimental results demonstrate that the sensitivity profile of the designed coil has a homogeneity of 98.89%, which allows quantitative imaging of the superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (SPIONs) in a whole imaging field of view.