A Physical Framework to Interpret the Effects of High Permittivity Materials on Radiofrequency Coil Performance in Magnetic Resonance Imaging

OBJECTIVE: We propose a framework to interpret the effects of High Permittivity Materials (HPM) on the performance of radiofrequency coils in Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). METHODS: Based on a recent formulation of the scattering and propagation properties of spheres, we expanded the field in a layered sphere as a superposition of ingoing and outgoing travelling waves, which allowed us to study the field components with a non-homogeneous transmission line model. We investigated the effects of a layer of HPM surrounding a head-mimicking uniform sphere at 7 tesla. RESULTS: Through the analysis of impedance and reflection coefficients, we show that by adjusting the properties of the HPM, it is possible to selectively amplify individual modes, or combination of them, modifying the overall field distribution in the sample and increasing signal-to-noise ratio at specific locations. Our results demonstrate that the observed enhanced MRI performance is not merely due to secondary fields generated by displacement currents in the HPM. CONCLUSIONS: Our formulation explains the effect of HPM in terms of matching, enabling the optimization of the electrical properties of the HPM with a simple mode-matching formula. SIGNIFICANCE: The proposed method could guide the design of novel radiofrequency coils with integrated HPM.