Dielectric Loaded decoupling technique for multichannel RF coils

This study presents a novel decoupling method using dielectric loaded coils without extra circuitry or loosing signal by overlapping the coils. In this method, the simple loop coils with an end capacitor are loaded with a mixture of silicon-based polymer and dielectric powder (Titanium dioxide) providing a stretchable and flexible substrate. The performance of this decoupling method was compared with the conventional geometric overlapping by measuring s-parameters at 300 MHz. Similar decoupling was achieved (10% less) with dielectric loaded coils without any geometric overlaps compared to unloaded conventional coils. A significant improvement of 47.6% was observed in decoupling when two loaded coils were overlapped. Additionally, comparison between tangentially placed dielectric loaded coils with tangentially placed unloaded coils resulted in a 30% improvement of decoupling. This method is applicable to magnetic resonance imaging of samples with heterogenous shapes and other general applications where coil arrays are being used.