Abstract #2578

Numerical Optimization of Minimum Phase RF Pulses for UTE Imaging

Andrew T. Curtis^1,2, Christopher K. Anand³, Craig K. Jones¹, L Martyn Klassen¹, Ravi S. Menon^1,2

¹Center for Functional and Metabolic Mapping, Robarts Research Institute, London, Ontario, Canada; ²Medical Biophysics, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada; ³Computing and Software, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

A numerical optimization method for radiofrequency (RF) pulse design for Ultra-short TE (UTE) imaging was designed. Pulses are designed to play out over the ramp-down of the slice select gradient, and are nearly self-rewound requiring no slice select rewinder. This is a gain versus typical slice based, half-RF UTE methods where double the number of acquisitions are required to perform proper slice selection. The generated pulses have good profiles over the designed field-of-view (FOV), and have moderate power requirements. Preliminary images of a short-T2 phantom are showcased.