Compact conformal metasurface antenna for hyperthermia applications

In this paper, the design, analysis and evaluation of a new compact conformal metasurface (MTS)-based bow-tie slot antenna is presented for hyperthermia treatment of cancer. A bow-tie slot antenna in close proximity with tissue designed at 2.45 GHz was used to excite the MTS layer, which is made of a 4 x 4 uniform array of square unit cells. The proposed MTS-based antenna is compact and provides enhanced penetration depth in the tissue medium as compared to the bow-tie antenna only. To verify the design concept, both the proposed MTS-based antenna and bow-tie antenna were fabricated, and the measured results are well anticipated. Finally, the MTS applicator is terminated with water bolus and tissue to characterize its hyperthermia performance in a real scenario. The key features of the proposed MTS applicator include wide impedance bandwidth (stable hyperthermia performance), enhanced penetration depth and effective field size, single-layer structure and ease of fabrication.