Designing adiabatic radio frequency pulses using the Shinnar-Le Roux algorithm

Adiabatic pulses are a special class of radio frequency (RF) pulses that may be used to achieve uniform flip angles in the presence of a nonuniform B₁ field. In this work, we present a new, systematic method for designing high-bandwidth (BW), low-peak-amplitude adiabatic RF pulses that utilizes the Shinnar-Le Roux (SLR) algorithm for pulse design. Currently, the SLR algorithm is extensively employed to design nonadiabatic pulses for use in magnetic resonance imaging and spectroscopy. We have adapted the SLR algorithm to create RF pulses that also satisfy the adiabatic condition. By overlaying sufficient quadratic phase across the spectral profile before the inverse SLR transform, we generate RF pulses that exhibit the required spectral characteristics and adiabatic behavior. Application of quadratic phase also distributes the RF energy more uniformly, making it possible to obtain the same spectral BW with lower RF peak amplitude. The method enables the pulse designer to specify spectral profile parameters and the degree of quadratic phase before pulse generation. Simulations and phantom experiments demonstrate that RF pulses designed using this new method behave adiabatically.