Iterative Low-Rank Infilling Approach for Zero Echo-Time (ZTE) Imaging

Motivation: The short, but non-zero, time taken to switch between transmit and receive results in a dead-time gap in Zero Echo-Time (ZTE) imaging, which leads to substantial reconstruction artifacts. Goal(s): Determine the missing data in the dead-time gap without any additional acquisition. Approach: We reformulate the reconstruction problem as a nuclear norm minimization problem to implicitly fill the missing data through iterative reconstruction. Results: The proposed method demonstrates that the missing data can be filled using low-rank without sacrificing image quality. Impact: We present a method for filling the dead-time gap in ZTE imaging using low-rank that does not require the collection of additional data.