Biomedical applications of sodium meta silicate gel as coupling medium for microwave medical imaging

A study on the dielectric properties of sodium meta silicate (SMS) gel at the S band of microwave frequencies is carried out using a cavity perturbation technique. Dielectric parameters such as dielectric constant, dielectric loss and absorption coefficient of various SMS gel samples with different relative density (RD) and pH combinations are determined. It is observed that the dielectric constants between 8 and 20, which matches well with that of various biological tissues can be achieved. Dielectric loss and absorption coefficient are found to be less than the corresponding values for the conventional coupling media namely water and saline. This material can find application as an efficient coupling medium and phantom model in microwave medical imaging.