Magnetic Resonance Wire Coil Losses Estimation With Finite-Difference Time-Domain Method

By Giulio Giovannetti, Yong Wang, Naveen Kumar Tumkur Jayakumar, Jeff Barney, and Gianluigi Tiberi

Radiofrequency (RF) coils are used to transmit and receive signals in magnetic resonance (MR) systems. Optimized RF coil design has to take into account strategies to maximize the coil performance by choosing coil sizes and geometry for achieving the best signal-to-noise ratio (SNR).

In particular, coil conductor and radiative loss contributions strongly affect the SNR value, with the first mainly playing a role in low-field MR systems especially, while the second could be the dominant coil loss mechanism for high-frequency tuned coils. This paper investigates the accuracy of the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method for separately estimating coil conductor and radiative loss contributions. Download the full white paper to learn more.