A Look Through Artificial Human Tissues at Ka-Band and D-Band

Recent years have seen a surge of interest for in-vivo wireless body communications and sensing, driven by advancements in seamlessly integrated implantable sensors within the human bloodstream. Millimeter-wave (mmWave) and sub-terahertz (sub-THz) technologies have played a pivotal role in developing compact bionanosensors for medical treatments and monitoring vital indicators, including cancer cells. However, human tissues’ non-transparent behavior for higher frequency electromagnetic waves, attributed to their low-pass characteristics, requires careful consideration of system properties such as bandwidth, data rate, and physical dimensions to achieve optimal balance. This study investigates penetration losses in four artificial human tissue phantoms, namely skin and fat, using state-of-the-art VNA-based SWISSto12 material characterization kit (MCK). The investigation spans the frequency ranges in the Ka-band (25-40GHz) and D-band (110-170GHz).