Motivation: The recently introduced coax monopole antenna could be a suitable head coil array element for the 14T MRI system, which is being developed for installation in Nijmegen, the Netherlands. Goal(s): Evaluate the performance of the coax monopole antenna at 600MHz and compare the fractionated dipole. Approach: Eight-channel FDTD simulations were performed on human model Duke to evaluate B1+ and SAR distributions. Prototypes were built for S-parameter evaluation. Results: The coax monopole and fractionated dipole perform similar in terms of B1+ and SAR efficiency. The coax monopole has lower reflection and coupling. Impact: The coax monopole antenna would be an excellent candidate for transmit head coil arrays at 14T MRI, due to its high SAR efficiency and low coupling. Additionally, its single-ended design facilitates cable routing, particularly in a spatially restricted environment.
Budé et al. (Tue,) studied this question.