Co-optimisation of send and receive coils

Magnetic particle imaging exploits the nonlinear magnetization behaviour of iron oxide nanoparticles, by modulat-ing the magnetic flux density of those particles. This modulation is achieved by creating time-varying magnetic fields using a drive coil. The generated signal is picked up with a receive coil. In order to minimize mutual influence, those coils need to be optimized. The decision process for an optimal combination of drive and focus field coil and the receive coil is described with respect to the signal chain and power consumption of the scanner. It is shown that the advantages of longer coils result in a linear increase of the power loss in the scanner, while the obtained sensitivity no longer increases relevantly. Based on this analysis a coil with favourable cost-benefit ratio can be chosen.