Ikhwan Kim1,2 , Dong-Min Lee1,2 , Jae-Woo Shin1,3 ,Gyoun-Jung Lee1,3 , Eun-Seong Kim1,3 * and Nam-Young Kim1,2,3 *

1 RFIC Bio Center, Kwangwoon University, Seoul, Republic of Korea, 2 Department Electronic Engineering, Kwangwoon University, Seoul, Republic of Korea, 3 APR Device Center, Seoul, Republic of Korea

OPEN ACCESS

EDITED BY Daniele Tosi, Nazarbayev University, Kazakhstan

REVIEWED BY

Lorenzo Crocco, National Research Council (CNR), Italy Changyul Cheon,

University of Seoul, Republic of Korea

*CORRESPONDENCE Eun-Seong Kim, 该Email地址已收到反垃圾邮件插件保护。要显示它您需要在浏览器中启用JavaScript。 Nam-Young Kim, 该Email地址已收到反垃圾邮件插件保护。要显示它您需要在浏览器中启用JavaScript。

RECEIVED 29 January 2024

ACCEPTED 08 March 2024

PUBLISHED 28 March 2024

CITATION

Kim I, Lee D-M, Shin J-W, Lee G-J, Kim E-S and Kim N-Y (2024), Radio frequency hyperthermia system for skin tightening effect by filled waveguide aperture antenna with compact metamaterials. Front. Bioeng. Biotechnol. 12:1378084.

doi: 10.3389/fbioe.2024.1378084

COPYRIGHT

© 2024 Kim, Lee, Shin, Lee, Kim and Kim. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

Radio frequency (RF) hyperthermia focuses on raising the target area temperature to a value exceeding 45°C. Collagen is stimulated when the temperature rises to 45°C at the dermal layer, resulting in skin tightening. However, most studies on RF hyperthermia have focused on tumor ablation or using electrodes to radiate an electromagnetic field, which is highly inefficient. This study proposed a noninvasive RF hyperthermia skin-tightening system with a compact metamaterial- filled waveguide aperture antenna. The proposed RF system increased the temperature by 11.6°C and 35.3°C with 20 and 80 W of 2.45 GHz RF power, respectively, within 60 s and exhibited a very focused effective area. Furthermore, a metamaterial was proposed to reduce the size of the waveguide aperture antenna and focus the electromagnetic field in the near-field region. The proposed metamaterial-filled waveguide aperture antenna was compact, measuring 10 mm × 17.4 mm, with a peak gain of 2.2 dB at 2.45 GHz. The measured hyperthermia performance indicated that the proposed RF system exhibited better power- and time-efficient hyperthermia performance than other RF hyperthermia systems in the cosmetic skin lifting commercial market. The proposed RF hyperthermia systems will be applied into a new generation of beauty cosmetic devices.

KEYWORDS RF hyperthermia, metamaterial, skin tightening, beauty device, waveguide aperture antenna