A desktop experimentation and research platform to drive, control and monitor Microheaters, and to record and analyze their thermal response. It comprises a Microheater and associated electronics, Software to define Electrical Excitation and to observe the corresponding response of the Microheater.
Platinum based Microheater with integrated temperature sensor
- Micro-structures(coil) in platinum that can be heated from room temperature to several hundreds of degree Celsius within a few milliseconds.
- The heater coil is sandwiched between layers of silicon dioxide and silicon nitride.
- This sandwiched membrane is suspended on a silicon substrate and acts like a hot plate when connected to a power source due to resistive heating.
- There is a thermally coupled RTD which acts as an integrated temperature sensor for in-situ temperature measurement/sensing.
- The Microheater is given an electrical excitation in the form of standard input signals like sine, square, triangular, etc. or user-defined inputs
- This excitation causes the heater to ramp up to several tens and hundreds of degrees with a characteristic thermal profile that depends on the type of input .
- The thermal profile can be seen as a graph of Temperature vs Time
- The rise and fall times to different input signals can be analyzed
- Each PCB comes with 2 Microheaters to enable carrying out differential measurements
- Experiments can be performed to study the effect of addition of thermal mass on the thermal response of the Microheater
