A unified coil assembly for magnetic resonance imaging is disclosed. The coil assembly includes an RF coil element and a shim coil array with a shim coil element. The shim coil element is physically separated or partially separated from the RF coil element. The shim coil element includes a DC current loop having a DC power supply connection to allow DC current to generate a local BO magnetic field. The unified coil array assembly is configured to simultaneously provide an RF mode for at least one of transmit or receive and a direct current mode to generate a local B0 magnetic field for B0 shimming Larger number of shim coils relative to the RF coil element provides superior shimming performance. The mutual inductance between the shim coil element and the RF coil element is minimized by proposed geometrical decoupling methods in order to minimize the RF interaction between the two.
