Mohammad Mehdi Khalighi1, Brian K. Rutt2,
Manojkumar Saranathan2, Adam B. Kerr3
1Global Applied Science Laboratory,
GE Healthcare, Menlo Park, CA, United States; 2Department of
Radiology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, United States; 3Department
of Electrical Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, United States
B1+ mapping by the Bloch-Siegert (BS) method has been shown to be fast and accurate; however, at high field it suffers from high SAR and long TE, which results in lengthened scan times and signal loss due to B0 inhomogeneity. We have designed a new BS RF pulse that can be applied closer to the water resonance yet still limits excitation within the on-resonant band of interest. Comparison of BS B1+ mapping using the new pulse versus the conventional Fermi pulse in both phantoms and human brain shows improved B1+ map quality with substantial reductions in both TE and SAR.