Thermal Gradient DNA Chip

We have developed a new DNA chip that allows the temperature of each DNA probe to be controlled independently and set to an optimum value. By simulation, a thermal gradient is found to be established in the SiO2 membrane on the chip. We fabricated the prototype chip and evaluated the fundamental characteristics of the chip. The temperature-sensing characteristic is almost linear, so the Si-islands’ temperatures can be detected and controlled by using the simple function of the pi-junction’s voltage. With the proposed structure, an Si-island can effectively be thermally isolated from the neighboring islands. Using this new DNA chip, we can arrange the appropriate DNA probes depending on the melting temperature and hybridization between a target DNA and carry it out in the optimum condition.