Kt Points: Fast Three-Dimensional Tailored RF Pulses for Flip-Angle Homogenization Over an Extended Volume

Martijn Anton Cloos¹, Nicolas Boulant¹, Michel Luong², Guillaume Ferrand², Christopher J. Wiggins¹, Eric Giacomini¹, Alain France², Dennis Le Bihan¹, Alexis Amadon¹

Transmit-SENSE gives the opportunity to implement short excitation pulses with good flip-angle homogeneity at high field. For slice-selective pulses, this was previously demonstrated using a spoke k-space trajectory. Here we present a novel pulse design returning sub-millisecond pulses with excellent flip-angle homogenization over an extended volume. Experimental results are shown at 7T, demonstrating a 950-μs excitation pulse producing a 151.1 flip-angle distribution over a 16-cm spherical phantom having the same electrical properties as a human head.