DEVELOPING TISSUE PHANTOM MATERIALS WITH REQUIRED ELECTRIC CONDUCTIVITIES

This thesis is the final work for fulfilment of the Master of Science degree at the Thomas Johann Seebeck Department of electronics in Tallinn University of Technology. The overall aim of this research is to develop inexpensive tissue similar phantoms with required electric conductivities and find a reliable measurement technique for said phantoms. The master project includes two main parts: review of the state of art and phantom construction and testing. First part introduces different phantoms used in biomedical fields and potentially suitable materials for mimicking tissues. It also reviews the main concepts of bioimpedance and van der Pauw method for determining conductivity.

This section is mainly based on scientific publications analysed to give theoretical basis for assumptions made in the study. Second part includes development process of phantoms and their measurement results with implemented measurement technique. After analysing subject matter literature and considering possibilities, gelatine material is used to make homogeneous phantoms with tissue similar conductivities because other discussed materials were either too expensive or too problematic to prepare. Van der Pauw method is applied for conductivity measurements due the interest to investigate its accuracy and reliability measuring thick biological samples. Biological tissues have different electric conductivities, which means it should be also possible to manipulate with phantom conductivities.