A microwave detection way by electromagnetic and elastic resonance: Breaking the bottleneck of spatial resolution in microwave imaging

Abstract

The spatial resolution of microwave imaging depends on the geometrical size of the detector. The existing techniques mainly focus on optimizing the antenna design to achieve high detection sensitivity. However, since the optimal antenna size is closely related to the wavelength to be measured, and the miniaturization of the geometrical size is challenging, this limits the spatial resolution of microwave imaging. In this letter, a microwave detection technique based on the electromagnetic-elastic resonance effect is proposed. The piezoelectric materials can produce mechanical responses under microwave excitation, and the amplitude of the microwave can be detected by measuring these responses. In contrast to conventional microwave detection method, the proposed method has distinct advantages in terms of high sensitivity and wide spectral response. Most importantly, it overcomes the limitation of detector size, thus, significantly improving the detection resolution. Therefore, the proposed method has potential for microwave imaging in biomedical applications.