Continuous-Wave Mm-Wave Waveguide-Based Probe for Skin Tissue Characterisation

Abstract

This paper presents the study and simulation results of a millimetre-wave based device for cancerous skin tissue detection. A probe that could be implemented using inexpensive silicon planar fabrication is proposed. It permits easy system-on-chip integration with other silicon devices to achieve an entire measuring tool for easy deployment. We used the available open literature basal cell carcinoma (BCC) data considerations, for initial development and simulation validation. This study showed that the reflection coefficients vs frequency could capture useful information indicating the possible BCC presence at millimetre-wave frequencies by using both magnitude and phase of the reflection coefficients. It was found that a dual-band approach, 100 to 150 GHz and 200 to 250 GHz, has the ability to highlight deviations from the normal skin.