Patent ID: 8198893

Claim:
A method for designing a gradient coil, comprising at least one electrical conductor, said gradient coil having parameters that, in combination, define a structure of said gradient coil, said method comprising: configuring said at least one conductor of said gradient coil to produce a gradient magnetic field when said at least one conductor is supplied with current in a magnetic resonance (MR) data acquisition procedure in a combined MR/positron emission tomography (PET) apparatus comprising a PET detector device with PET detector device electronics; varying said configuration of said at least one conductor of said gradient coil through a plurality of variations, each variation comprising a different combination of said parameters; testing each of said variations to identify an optimal variation, among said plurality of variations, that causes an electrical field generated by the gradient coil to satisfy at least one criterion selected from the group of criteria consisting of said electrical field being minimized in a region in the PET detector device, and said electrical field exhibiting no superelevations that present a risk of interference with said PET detector device electronics; and selecting the parameter set of the optimal variation as a final design of said gradient coil.