Patent ID: 7737694

Claim:
A method of magnetic resonance imaging that includes receiving electrical signals using at least one RF receiving coil including a coiled electrical conducting element consisting essentially of carbon nanotube material, and including at least one sensor to estimate position and orientation of the RF receiving coil, the method comprising: acquiring high signal-to-noise-ratio RF signals from an imaging volume with the said receiving coil in the presence of a static magnetic field with the receiving coil in a fixed spatial configuration; moving the RF receiving coil to a second spatial configuration and acquiring RF signals from the imaging volume with the RF receiving coil in the second spatial configuration; using the position and orientation information of the RF receiving coil in both configurations to process the RF signals thereby obtained to calculate image intensity in at least two image sub-volumes; and automatically combining the image intensities in the two image sub-volumes so as to create a three dimensional image intensity reconstruction of the entire imaging volume.