Design and Simulation of a Birdcage Coil using CST Studio Suite for Application at 7T

This work describes the study of coil for Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) application. Concretely, the principal objective is the design of a birdcage coil (RF coil) to use in a 7 Tesla scanner. More strength field has a better SNR and increased chemical shift effects, improving spectral fat suppression and spectroscopy. Moreover, a better SNR increases the spatial resolution or reduces the imaging time. For this reason, it is interesting research with high fields. The birdcage coil achieves circular polarization and generates a high homogeneous radio frequency magnetic field under many conditions. In this project is designed a Birdcage coil for a 7T to obtain images from small animals (like a mouse). It opens the door to design and construct a Birdcage coil for a 7T to obtain human brain images. In this project thesis, for obtain the design, a study is carried out firstly using the computer program BirdcageBuilder (developed by the Penn State Hershey collage of Medicine). Secondly, the results obtained with this simulator are introduced to the CST Microwave Studio, creating a 3D model and generating a simulation. In this step, finally the parameters are readjusted to obtain our desired Larmor frequency (298,2MHz) for a correct operation in 7T. These simulations demonstrate the theoretical results from our design and it shows the designed antenna behaviour.