Permittivity measurement of biological materials with improved microwave cavity perturbation technique

Abstract

Abstract The resonant cavity perturbation technique is usually used to measure the complex permittivity of various dielectric materials at microwave frequency. The values of real and imaginary part of the complex permittivity of the material under test can be deduced from the measured shift of resonant frequency and the change of quality factor (Q factor) of the resonance cavity with inserted samples. In this article, an improved resonance cavity perturbation technique is employed to measure the complex permittivity of biological materials, including porcine fat, marrow, and liver, etc. The measured results agree well with the known data, demonstrating the potential validity of our method. This method can be expected to extend to permittivity measurement of other biological material even the tissues from human body. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 50: 1800–1804, 2008; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/mop.23490