Manipulating Bandwidth of Cryogenically Cooled Receive-Only MRI Detectors

Cryogenically cooled magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) coils demonstrate extremely high Q-factors, leading to a very narrow bandwidth. This bandwidth can be increased in a controlled manner using a preamplifier decoupling. In this letter, an MRI coil design procedure is explained, and an example showing over two times bandwidth increase in a cryogenic coil for 13C isotope imaging in 3-Tesla MRI systems is demonstrated. The achieved wider bandwidth preserves the spectral components of magnetic resonance signals and makes coils less susceptive to detuning due to parasitic coupling to surrounding structures. The presented method is also useful in other applications of high-Q coils, for instance, in low-field MRI systems.