Patent ID: 7012430

Claim:
A transmit/receive (T/R) phased array coil system for use with a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) system having a transmitter and a data acquisition system, the T/R phased array coil system comprising: (a) a first coil defining a first region; (b) a second coil defining a second region, said first and said second coils defining an overlap region in which one of said coils is partially overlapped by the other of said coils to form a phased array coil subsystem; (c) a power splitter for allocating between said first and said second coils radio frequency (RF) power received from said transmitter; (d) an attenuator for reducing said RF power allocated to at least one of said first and said second coils; (e) a phase compensator for affecting a phase relationship between (I) a first magnetic field producible through said first coil over said first region corresponding thereto and (II) a second magnetic field producible through said second coil over said second region corresponding thereto; and (f) a plurality of switches for enabling switching between (I) a transmit state wherein said phased array coil subsystem is coupled to said transmitter and decoupled from said data acquisition system so that a substantially uniform magnetic field is formed in: (A) said overlap region by interaction of said first and said second magnetic fields; and (B) at least portions of said first and said second regions outside said overlap region predominantly by said first and said second magnetic fields, respectively; thereby enabling said phased array coil subsystem to apply said substantially uniform magnetic field to an anatomical structure placed within at least one of said first region, said second region and said overlap region; and (II) a receive state wherein said phased array coil subsystem is decoupled from said transmitter and coupled to said data acquisition system thereby enabling a response of said anatomical structure to said substantially uniform magnetic field received by said phased array coil subsystem to be conveyed to said data acquisition subsystem.