Modelling of an integrated micro-thermoelctric cooler for microfluidics

Localised and rapid cooling of liquid in microchannels is essential for a wide variety of lab-on-a-chip and biochip applications. One of the best ways of achieving accurate and local temperature control on the microscale is to use thermoelectric cooling. In this paper I use a coupled numerical simulation of the fluid flow, heat transfer and DC electrical conduction (including the Peltier effect) to gain insight into the important fluid flow and heat transfer characteristics associated with an embedded micro-thermoelectric cooler. The results compare favourably to a previously-developed one-dimensional model. The effect of substrate thermal conductivity, heat sink thermal resistance and electrical current were investigated. For optimal performance of this system (fluid temperature reductions greater than 5K) some heat-sink heat transfer enhancements are needed in order to decrease the thermal resistance below a critical value of approximately 10W/mK