An adjustable adiabatic pulse for selective population inversion.

A new adiabatic inversion pulse and its design principles are presented. An analytical expression in the pulse length, inversion bandwidth, inversion efficiency, peak RF amplitude, and width of the transition region is derived and validated. Accordingly, the pulse shape can be adapted to achieve a specified inversion performance. Adjusted for broadband application, population can be inverted band selectively, rather independently of spatial RF field inhomogeneities, and with significantly reduced peak RF amplitude in comparison with the well-known hyperbolic secant adiabatic pulse.