Simulation and experiment of microheater for a microfluidic polymerase chain reaction device

In this paper, we describe the simulation and experimental results of electroplated microheater for microfluidic-base polymerase chain reaction (PCR) device. This work used finite element analysis to simulate the temperature characteristics of a PCR device. The device consists of a reaction chamber using polydimethysiloxane (PDMS) with encapsulated microhearter made of a nickel resistor wire. Design of the microheater mask layout using Tanner L-edit. Microheater can be made by low cost electroplating process. The temperature in the experiment was shown heating and cooling rates were 0.9 /spl deg/C/s and 0.8 /spl deg/C/s respectively. The thermal distribution of the device was also studied through finite elements modeling then compare to the experimental results.