Single-coil surface imaging using a radiofrequency field gradient

A method for in-plane imaging of large objects as compared to the RF coil i s proposed based on the use of a single specially designed surface coil, wi thout using B-0 gradients. A constant B-1 gradient was generated along the main axis of a ladder-shaped coil, and RF-encoding along the direction of t he gradient made it possible to obtain spin-density profiles. Successive ac quisitions of profiles obtained by translation of the NMR coil resulted in distorted images-due to the presence of non-zero gradients perpendicular to the constant gradient-that were successfully processed using a mathematica l treatment based on linear combinations of calculated altered images from single-pixel objects. (C) 2000 Academic Press.