Design of a Compact Reactive Loaded Miniaturized Catheter Antenna for Microwave Ablation in Deep Tissue Environment

A passive reactive loaded catheter antenna working at 0.8 GHz with peak gain 1.65dBi is designed for microwave ablation application in deep tissue environment. The proposed structure is 61% miniaturized with respect to an equivalent unloaded quarter wavelength monopole designed to work at the same frequency. The input impedance of the proposed catheter antenna can be practically engineered using series L-C loading in order to achieve good impedance matching at a desired miniaturization level with respect to an arbitrary source impedance without the need for external matching networks. The proposed catheter structure exhibits 38.7 dBm radiated power at around 0.8 GHz when inserted in deep tissue environment with 40dBm (10 W) of input CW power.