A Flexible iPRES AIR Coil Array for MRI and Localized B0 Shimming

Susceptibility-induced B0 inhomogeneities can cause artifacts that severely degrade the image quality in many applications. Integrated parallel reception, excitation, and shimming (iPRES) coil arrays can perform MRI and localized B0 shimming with a single coil array, but are so far rigid, which limits their SNR and shimming performance. Here, we develop a flexible iPRES coil array that can conform to the subject’s anatomy and substantially improve the SNR and reduce the B0 inhomogeneities and geometric distortions in diffusion-weighted imaging of the knee compared to a rigid iPRES coil array, which will be valuable for many anatomical regions and applications.