A novel split patch antenna and saddle coil resonant structure for EPR Imaging

Motivation: A patch antenna transmitter and a saddle coil resonator with optimized Q and bandwidth was used to perform EPR imaging in time-domain to cover a phantom of large volume as prelude to in vivo functional EPR imaging to open up possibilities of scaling up FT-EPR imaging to practically useful in cancer research and tissue oximetry. Goal(s): To advance FT-EPR oximetric and functional imaging capable of studying rabbit size animals. Approach: We used a patch antenna for transmit and saddle coil as receiver to allow uniform transmit and receive with reduced SAR. Results: A resonant structure was built successfully to operate at 300 MHz. Impact: This resonant structure is implemented for the first time with sufficient bandwidth and short recovery time to image signals from a large volume resonator. This design allows easy scale up for human size objects.