Quadrature-multiplexed rf excitation for information doubling in NMR imaging

A quadrature multiplexed pulse sequence to double the data information in a given acquisition time is proposed for NMR tomography. This technique takes advantage of the Hermitian property of the Fourier transform operation in NMR imaging. The proposed technique uses two rf pulses with 90 degrees phase difference simultaneously applied for the excitation of the spins in two different slices. The method results in truly simultaneous data acquisition coming from two different anatomical slices which can be separated into the real and imaginary parts of the image domain. This technique, therefore, also allows us either to reduce the experiment time by half or double the number of slices in the same examination time, depending on the applied imaging scheme. As a preliminary study, simultaneous dual-slice imaging of a human head using a conventional single-slice imaging scheme was performed.