Markus Weiger1,
David Otto Brunner1, Benjamin E. Dietrich1, Klaas P.
Pruessmann1
1Institute
for Biomedical Engineering, University and ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
Zero echo time (ZTE) imaging is a promising alternative for direct MRI of tissues with short T2. With respect to the commonly applied 3D UTE method employing rapid gradient ramping after RF excitation, the hardware demands are shifted towards the RF domain by excitation after setting the gradient. For imaging at high bandwidth as required for resolving short T2, very rapid T/R switching is required, which was implemented for a human whole body scanner. In addition sub-millisecond TR was realised to improve SNR efficiency. With these measures, initial results were obtained for musculoskeletal imaging in healthy human volunteers.