Suppression of Surface Currents at Microwave Frequency Using Graphene-Application to Microwave Cancer Treatment

Abstract

In this work we consider the problem of surface currents suppression using graphene in the context of microwave cancer treatment. Most of the research on graphene has been focused on its applications at terahertz frequencies, and not at microwave frequencies. The use of microwave cancer ablation technique using a coaxial slot antenna is being limited because of the existence of surface currents which lead to the heating of the healthy tissues along its outer surface. In this work we propose to use graphene which is a single-atom sheet of carbon, as a solution to prevent the propagation of surface currents on the outer conductor of the coaxial antenna. We show that by properly designing and tuning the conductivity of the graphene layer, we can not only suppress the surface currents, but also control the amount of energy deposited in the surrounding tissue.