Method and magnetic resonance system to acquire MR data of a slice of a volume segment within an examination subject

A magnetic resonance (MR) apparatus comprising:

• an MR data acquisition unit, which an examination subject is situated said MR data acquisition unit comprising a gradient system and a radio-frequency system;
• a control computer configured to operate a gradient system of the MR data acquisition unit to activate a slice selection gradient along a first direction that selects a slice orthogonal to said first direction, in the examination subject;
• said control computer being configured to operate the RF system of the MR data acquisition unit to radiate an RF excitation pulse that excites nuclear spins only in said slice;
• said control computer being configured to operate the gradient system to activate a first phase coding gradient that phase encodes, along said first direction, MR signals produced by the excited nuclear spins;
• said control computer being configured to operate the gradient system to activate a second phase coding gradient, along a second direction that is orthogonal to said first direction, that encodes said MR signals in said second direction in a number of phase coding steps, said number being dependent on said first phase coding gradient;
• said control computer being configured to operate said gradient system to activate a readout gradient along a third direction that is orthogonal to said first direction and to said second direction to acquire said MR signals;
• an electronic memory organized as k-space;
• and
• said control computer being configured to enter MR data corresponding to the MR signals into said electronic memory organized as k-space according to the phase coding produced by said first phase coding gradient and the phase coding produced by said second phase coding gradient, thereby producing a data file in said memory that is available in electronic form for further processing of said MR data.

A non-transitory, computer-readable data storage medium encoded with programming instructions, said data storage medium being loaded into a control and processing computer system of a magnetic resonance (MR) apparatus, said MR apparatus comprising an MR data acquisition unit, in which an examination subject is situated, having a gradient system and a radio-frequency (RF) system, said programming instructions causing said processing and control computer to:

• operate the gradient system of the MR data acquisition unit to activate a slice selection gradient along a first direction that selects a slice, orthogonal to said first direction, in the examination subject;
• operate the RF system of the MR data acquisition unit to radiate an RF excitation pulse that excites nuclear spins only in said slice;
• operate the gradient system to activate a first phase coding gradient that phase encodes, along said first direction, MR signals produced by the excited nuclear spins;
• operate the gradient system to activate a second phase coding gradient, along a second direction that is orthogonal to said first direction, that encodes said MR signals in said second direction in a number of phase coding steps, said number being dependent on said first phase coding gradient;
• operate said gradient system to activate a readout gradient along a third direction that is orthogonal to said first direction and to said second direction to acquire said MR signals;
• and
• enter MR data corresponding to the MR signals into an electronic memory organized as k-space according to the phase coding produced by said first phase coding gradient and the phase coding produced by said second phase coding gradient, thereby producing a data file in said memory that is available in electronic form for further processing of said MR data.