Patent ID: 7259562

Claim:
An excitation coil for a magnetic resonance imaging instrument, said coil comprising: at least four current loops, wherein if one unit of electric current flows through one or more of said loops, said one or more loops has a magnetic dipole moment, and for each loop the distance between the loop center and the central transverse plane of said instrument is smaller than 60% of the distance between the loop center and the center of said instrument; and wherein all of the conditions a, b, and c are met: a) at least three of said at least four current loops each have an axis which cannot be moved into a common plane without altering the direction of said axis by at least 35 degrees when the direction of the axis of one loop only is altered; b) each current loop has a position vector relative to the center of said instrument, and for at least one current loop the angular deviation of its axis is more than 20 degrees from the direction of its position vector; and, c) the axis of at least one current loop has an angular deviation of more than 22.5 degrees from the central transverse plane.