A Comparative Study of Skin Phantoms for Microwave Applications

In the here-reported study, we investigated the dielectric properties of three different skin-mimicking materials used in the reported controlled experiments for development and testing of microwave-range medical devices. Each of the phantom materials under consideration is tested in two forms: a thicker, larger block and a 2-mm sheet. The measured properties are compared to a reference of human skin tissue measurements from literature. Depending on the frequency range of the medical device in development, some phantoms are more suitable to represent human skin than others. We observe that all phantoms still show lower dielectric properties than the human skin reference, but are suitable representations of skin at microwave applications if used as 2-mm thin layers.