A nine-channel transmit/receive array for spine imaging at 10.5 T: Introduction to a nonuniform dielectric substrate antenna.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to introduce a new antenna element with improved transmit performance, named the nonuniform dielectric substrate (NODES) antenna, for building transmit arrays at ultrahigh-field.

Methods: We optimized a dipole antenna at 10.5 Tesla by maximizing the -SAR efficiency in a phantom for a human spine target.