SNR Improvement with Ultrahigh Dielectric Constant (uHDC) Material for 7T 1H MRS Imaging

We investigated the effects of ultra-high dielectric constant (uHDC) materials for enhancing the B1 field at 300 MHz for potential MRS imaging 1H at 7.0 T. The uHDC material was able to increase the transmit efficiency. We calculated B1+ and B1+ efficiency for a phantom mouse brain with and without uHDC material and empirically obtained nominal flip angle maps and 1H metabolic spectra with and without uHDC. Our results show significant enhancement of Signal-to-Noise ratios (SNRs) of 1H spectra in the presence of the uHDC material.