Highly adaptive RF excitation scheme based on conformal resonant CRLH metamaterial ring antennas for 7-Tesla traveling-wave magnetic resonance imaging

We propose an adaptive RF antenna system for the excitation (and manipulation) of the fundamental circular waveguide mode (TE11) in the context of high-field (7T) traveling-wave magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The system consists of «flat» composite right-/left-handed (CRLH) meta-material ring antennas that fully conforms to the inner surface of the MRI bore. The specific use of CRLH metamaterials is motivated by its inherent dispersion engineering capabilities, which is needed when designing resonant ring structures for virtually any predefined diameter operating at the given Larmor frequency (i.e. 298MHz). Each functional group of the RF antenna system consists of a pair of subsequently spaced and correspondingly fed CRLH ring antennas, allowing for the unidirectional excitation of propagating, circularly polarized B1 mode fields. The same functional group is also capable to simultaneously mold an incoming, counter-propagating mode. Given these functionalities we are proposing now a compound scheme (i.e. periodically arranged multiple antenna pairs) — termed as “MetaBore” — that is apt to provide a tailored RF power distribution as well as full wave reflection compensation virtually at any desired location along the bore.