Investigating Dipole Antennas as 1H Transmit Elements for a 1H/31P Calf Coil at 7 T

Different dipole antenna types as 1H transmit elements for metabolic 1H/31P MRS studies of the human calf were investigated. In simulations, the dipole elements and a loop coil were compared in terms of transmit efficiency and SAR. A three-element array of the best-performing design was simulated and constructed, and its transmit performance was found to be comparable to a four-element loop array. Investigating the interaction between a dipole transmit element and a receive-only loop placed underneath, efficient geometric decoupling was observed. This can be exploited to improve the receive sensitivity (homogeneity, depth) by using transceiver dipoles together with receive-only loops.