Abstract: An NMR resonant structure is formed of axial conductors (54a, 54b, 54c, and 54d) and end members (50,51), supporting said conductors to form a coil structure (8) of desired electrical topology wherein the end members combine the function of RF interconnects between selected axial conductors (inductors) with an axial constraint on RF field prevailing outside the axial bounds of the end members, and if so desired, comprise a selected capacitance 61 for the resonant structure.

Abstract: To provide a diagnostic apparatus utilizing nuclear magnetic resonance suitable for interventional MRI which is not limited as to selection of an imaging section and an phase-encoding axis, the reception coil thereof includes three loop coils arranged so as to surround an object to be examined and to be within a plane including a line segment parallel to a static magnetic field direction, and two surface coils arranged in the vicinity of the surface of the object within a plane including a line segment perpendicular to the static magnetic field direction. In the reception coil, two or more sub-coils have nonuniform sensitivity profiles along an arbitrary axis. Therefore, the reception coil configured to have sensitivity throughout the imaging areas can be realized.

Abstract: A method of optimizing effects of a shim system on static magnetic field in an imaging system or liquid spectroscopy system, wherein for each cell of a probe disposed within the magnetic field, the resonant frequency is obtained without any current being supplied to any shim coil, then for each cell, the resonant frequency thereof is obtained by a current being supplied to one shim without any current being supplied to the other shims, and a factor is obtained for each cell due only to the magnetic field produced by current supplied to the one shim, and the resulting difference divided by the current supplied to the shim is obtained for each cell for each separate shim current, from the data an equation is derived relating the field at each cell to the individual shim current. For the case when the number of cells is equal to or less than the number of shim coils, this equation is inverted to give the shim current values to produce the same field at all cells.