Open this publication in new window or tab >>2024 (English)In: IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, ISSN 0018-926X, E-ISSN 1558-2221, Vol. 72, no 7, p. 5489-5501Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]
In this article, we present an air-based approach to irradiate the female breast with electromagnetic microwave radiation by means of contactless evanescent near-field coupling for medical applications. A suitable transducer, so-called applicator, is presented, designed to create a TE-polarized evanescent field at approximately 4 GHz, reducing stray radiation and other unwanted first-order interactions at the breast surface without the need for a dielectric bolus liquid. Initial numerical investigations showed that the applicator setup achieves a 20-dB higher signal-to-clutter ratio (SCR) than a comparable bolus-based setup when applied to a simple high-adipose breast phantom. In the case of a low-adipose test load, the SCR could not be readily attributed to the presence of a tumor, yet it was found that under realistic conditions, the applicator setup achieves a significantly higher power transmission Effectiveness (EFF) into the load of up to 80% compared to the bolus-based setup that achieved less than 0.1% EFF. Experimental measurements of the applicator show a change of resonance frequency of less than 2% for load permittivities ranging from 1 to 80, enabling the applicator to be used for a wide span of patient-specific dielectric breast properties.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
IEEE-INST ELECTRICAL ELECTRONICS ENGINEERS INC, 2024
Keywords
Couplings, Dielectrics, Breast, Applicators, Surface waves, Microwave antennas, Optical waveguides, Antennas, cancer, evanescent waves, imaging, magnetic fields, microwave devices, microwave imaging (MWI), near fields, transmitting antennas
National Category
Electrical Engineering, Electronic Engineering, Information Engineering
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:mdh:diva-69420 (URN)10.1109/TAP.2024.3405178 (DOI)001271317200015 ()2-s2.0-85194829761 (Scopus ID)
2024-12-112024-12-112024-12-11Bibliographically approved