Design of a ceramic dielectric resonator for NMR microimaging at 14.1 tesla

Radiofrequency coil design for magnetic resonance becomes increasingly challenging at high magnetic field strengths due to resonator dimensions being a significant fraction of the electromagnetic wavelength, as well as the increased radiative and component losses intrinsic to higher frequencies. In this article an inductively fed dual‐disk ceramic dielectric resonator was constructed from barium strontium titanate, which has a high relative permittivity of 323, for operation at 600 MHz (14.1 tesla). The design is very simple, avoids wavelength issues, uses high Q‐materials, and has the additional advantage of being able to change the resonator's effective diameter. Preliminary images show a significantly higher signal‐to‐noise than obtained using a similarly‐sized conventional saddle coil.