System and method for magnetic resonance fingerprinting with relaxation and diffusion data acquisition

A magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) system comprising:

• a magnet system configured to generate a polarizing magnetic field about a portion of a subject positioned;
• a magnetic gradient system including a plurality of magnetic gradient coils configured to apply at least one magnetic gradient field to the polarizing magnetic field;
• a radio frequency (RF) system configured to apply an RF excitation field to the subject, and to receive magnetic resonance signals from the subject using a coil array;
• at least one processor configured to:
• perform a pulse sequence that integrates free-waveform b-tensor diffusion encoding into a magnet resonance fingerprinting pulse sequence to perform a multi-dimensional, relaxation-diffusion encoding while acquiring MRF signal evolutions;
• and
• process the MRF signal evolutions to determine at least one relaxation parameter and at least one diffusivity parameter.