BIOMEDIZINISCHE

MAGNETRESONANZ

Introduction

 For steady-state free precession (SSFP), a steady state is reached if the magnetization (distribution of magnetization vectors in the three-dimensional space) is identical at corresponding time points after the spin excitation for each repetition time TR. The steady state is achieved by a series of radiofrequency (RF) irradiation and natural relaxation behaviors of spins. It can be shown that under certain conditions (constant flip angle a of RF pulse, dephasing q by gradient pulse, and TR) a steady state of the magnetization will be established after several TR periods and was formally first described by Carr[1]. Note that we consider only the balanced SSFP case [2].