Compact, Elliptical-Toroid Floating Cable Traps

Motivation: While floating cable traps are critical for common-mode current suppression, there is room for improvement in field distortion and thermodynamic stability to improve patient safety and performance. Goal(s): Outperform current industry-standard floating cable traps in terms of thermal stability and field distortion through an elliptical-toroid design. Approach: Utilizing the concept of a toroidal moment, a series of elliptical traps were created. Bench measurements, scanner flip-angle distortions, and heating measurements were completed. Results: The elliptical-toroid trap demonstrated a 44% faster temperature stabilization, up to 91% reduction in flip angle difference at 10-mm phantom depth, and impedance of 380.2 Ω at 127.2 MHz. Impact: Our design demonstrates the possibility of lighter-weight cable traps that reduce heating and field distortion, minimize coupling with the coil and adjacent cable traps, and could improve safety through further minimizing the risk of RF burns on patients.