Investigation of Water-free Biotissue-mimicking Phantoms in Terahertz Frequency Range

PVC-based water-free phantoms with silicon and zinc oxide nanoparticles were fabricated for mimicking biotissues in the terahertz frequency range. Terahertz time-domain spectroscopy (TDS) was used to obtain the refractive indices and absorption coefficients of the phantoms. Their optical properties were compared with those of real biotissues from published data. The results show that the phantoms are able to mimic human skin, paraffin-embedded glioma and paraffin-embedded healthy brain tissue by their optical properties. The refractive index of the phantoms can be controlled by changing the concentration of the nanoparticles.