Compensation of Concomitant Maxwell Gradient Effects in 3D Multi-Element Spatially Selective RF Excitation

Tim Nielsen¹, Peter Brnert¹, Ulrich Katscher¹, Ingmar Graesslin¹

Parallel RF excitation using multi-element transmit coils is of interest to reduce pulse duration for spatially selective excitation. Here, we extend RF pulse calculation methods to compensate for the effects of concomitant Maxwell gradients. Their influence on the performance of 3D spatially selective excitation at a main field strength of 3T is investigated for a stack of spirals trajectory and different sizes of the field of excitation. To achieve high excitation quality, it is important to compensate the effect of concomitant gradients for a large field of excitation and long pulse duration mainly found in 3D RF applications.