title: A 4-channel coil array interconnection by analog direct modulation optical link for 1.5-T MRI.
abstract: Optical glass fiber shows great advantages over coaxial cables in terms of electromagnetic interference, thus, it should be considered a potential alternative for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) receive coil interconnection, especially for a large number coil array at high field. In this paper, we propose a 4-channel analog direct modulation optical link for a 1.5-T MRI coil array interconnection. First, a general direct modulated optical link is compared to an external modulated optical link. And then the link performances of the proposed direct modulated optical link, including power gain, frequency response, and dynamic range, are analyzed and measured. Phantom and in vivo head images obtained using this optical link are demonstrated for comparison with those obtained by cable connections. The signal-to-noise (SNR) analysis shows that the optical link achieves 6%-8% SNR a improvement over coaxial cables by elimination of electrical interference between cables during MR signal transmission.
authors.affiliation: MRI Laboratory, Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong, China. jyuan@eee.hku.hk
authors.forename: Jing
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Yuan
authors.forename: Juan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Wei
authors.forename: Gary X
authors.initials: GX
authors.lastname: Shen
mesh_terms: D001921:Brain / Q000033:anatomy & histology; D055590:Electromagnetic Phenomena / Q000295:instrumentation*; D004867:Equipment Design; D019544:Equipment Failure Analysis; D005336:Fiber Optic Technology / Q000295:instrumentation*; D006801:Humans; D007089:Image Enhancement / Q000295:instrumentation*; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000295:instrumentation*; D019047:Phantoms, Imaging; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D012815:Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted / Q000295:instrumentation*; D014159:Transducers