High-water content phantom for microwave imaging and microwave hyperthermia

Abstract

The main goal of this contribution is the investigation, design, and evaluation of an agar-based high-water content phantom for microwave imaging and hyperthermia. The contribution attempts to specify preparing procedure to get the most uniform results and describes the problems during the fabrication of the phantom, solves the problem with air bubbles. The effect of the size of PE powder particles to dielectric properties (40–48 and 150, μm) was evaluated. Dielectric properties of agar phantoms with different compositions of grape sugar and polyethylene powder were compared for lowering the relative part of the complex permittivity over the frequency range of 10–2995, MHz. Proposed phantom also consists of agar powder, distilled water, sodium chloride and TX-151. The relative permittivity was decreased to the value under 60 at frequency 434, MHz for muscle phantom with available equipment and fabrication (with 13.23% PE powder, 40–48, μm).