A 13-GHz “3-D” Near-Field Imager Employing Programmable Fringing Fields for Cancer Imaging

This letter presents a field-programming technique for 3-D near-field medical imaging at microwave frequencies. The design employs a stacked electrode pair to control the fringing electric fields based on impedance modulation principle and images tissue permittivity using standing-wave oscillators (SWOs). Implemented in 180-nm CMOS, the imager consists of 22050×50μm pixels and consumes 6.2 mW/pixel of power. Three-dimensional imaging is demonstrated using microfluidics and phantom samples achieving ∼1- μm depth resolution.