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Abstract #2854

Broadband, Shallow Tip NMR Pulse Design Providing Uniform Tipping in Inhomogeneous RF Fields

Hui Liu1, Gerald Matson1,2

1CIND, Veterans Affairs Medical Center, San Francisco, CA, United States; 2Pharmaceutical Chemistry, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, United States


Although high-field MRI offers increased signal-to-noise (S/N), the non-uniform tipping produced by conventional RF pulses leads to spatially dependent contrast and sub-optimal S/N, thus complicating the interpretation of the MR images. The aim of this research was to develop broadband RF pulses with immunity to B1 inhomogeneity. To accomplish this, we developed an optimization routine based on optimal control theory to design RF pulses with a desired range of immunity to B1 inhomogeneity and to resonance offset. The resulting pulses were more efficient than analogous pulses in the literature. These pulses have promise for certain MRI experiments at high field.