Abstract: A hydrogen-containing chemical species is included in the reactant gas mixture in a plasma-enhanced CVD process for forming a carbon-containing dielectric film. The CVD reactant gas mixture contains silicon, oxygen, hydrogen and carbon atoms for forming a novel carbon-containing silicon oxide film in which both Si—C and Si—H bonds are present. Because dielectric material deposited in accordance with the invention has a significant number of Si—H bonds, which are more robust than Si—C bonds, it is more resistant to undesired etching and other physical changes during fabrication than dielectric material formed by conventional methods. A method in accordance with the invention allows a faster deposition rate. A dielectric film formed in accordance with the invention has enhanced uniformity characteristics and a dielectric constant less than 3.

Abstract: An improved method and apparatus for microwave imaging of an inhomogeneous target, in particular of biological tissue, compensates for the interactions between active antennae and nonactive antennae. Measured electric field data are processed in magnitude and phase form so that unwrapped phase information may be used directly in the image reconstruction. Initial finite element measurements and calculations are used to determine the perimeter dimensions of the target being examined, resulting in more accurate image reconstructions. An improved regularization technique is a hybrid of a Marquardt regularization scheme with a spatial filtering technique and a Tikhonov regularization scheme. An improved switching matrix enables simultaneous sampling of electric field data from a plurality of receiving antennae.