Patent ID: 8049504

Claim:
A radio frequency (RF) coil system compatible with magnetic resonance (MR) imaging, the RF coil system comprising: a coil including a plurality of coil elements, wherein the coil is configured to perform at least one of transmitting radio frequency excitation pulses into an examination region and receiving responsive radio frequency pulses from the examination region; and a compensation network including: a reactive network comprising a plurality of reactive elements including at least one of capacitive elements and inductive elements, the reactive elements of the reactive network having capacitive or inductive values such that the compensation network decouples each coil element from other coil elements, and decoupling segments each having an effective quarter wavelength (λ/4) at a resonance frequency of the coil element, wherein each decoupling segment includes (i) an RF conductor which is electrically coupled at a first end to a first connection point of an associated coil element of the coil and which is electrically coupled at a second end to the reactive network and (ii) a shield conductor which is electrically coupled at one end to a second connection point of the associated coil element and to a ground point such that the reactive network is separated from the coil elements by the decoupling segments.