Markus Weiger1, 2, David Otto Brunner3, Benjamin Emanuel Dietrich3, Colin Felix Mller3, Klaas Paul Pruessmann3
1Bruker BioSpin AG, Faellanden, Switzerland; 2Bruker BioSpin MRI GmbH, Ettlingen, Germany; 3Institute for Biomedical Engineering, University and ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
MRI with zero echo time and hard-pulse excitation (ZTE) enables efficient, silent, and robust 3D imaging of short-T2 samples. Data obtained with this scheme are slightly incomplete in the k-space centre due to the initial dead time that is caused by the finite length of the RF pulse, transmit-receive (T/R) switching, and digital filtering. In the present work, we report the first implementation of the ZTE approach for human applications, relying on rapid T/R switching in the s range.
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