Determination of microwave generators' performance for medical applications

Microwave (MW) radiation (300MHz-30GHz) is a non-ionizing radiation widely used in medical and scientific applications, mostly for stimulation treatments. The most known effect of the high power MW radiation is heating (known also as the thermal effect) used in diathermy and hyperthermia medical treatments. Due to the mechanism of interaction between the MW radiation and biomolecules, the MW power deposition into the tissue is based on a selective absorption. During a MW treatment, into the tissue may occur dipolar displacement, free charge current or/and resonant absorption, all of which highly depend on the MW radiation parameters. We present here a simple and effective method which determines the absorbed MW power into a probe simulating the human body tissue, offering useful information about the MW generator's performance. In this method we are using our custom designed MW power generators, having specific automation, based on continuous wave (CW) magnetron.