Kay Nehrke1, Peter Brnert1
1Philips Research Europe, Hamburg, Germany
The B1 transmit field inhomogeneity represents a serious problem in whole-body high field MRI (>3T). B1 shimming based on measured B1 maps is a promising approach to cope with this problem and represents the primary application for parallel transmission at this point in time. However, B1 mapping is still an error-prone and time consuming process, potentially resulting in a SAR issue caused by the shimmed RF pulse and the mapping scan itself. In the present work, an eigenmode analysis of the transmit sensitivities is employed to accelerate the B1 mapping process and reduce the SAR of the shimmed RF pulses.