PWM-Based Control Circuit for Fast Heating of Flexible Microheaters

This paper presents the design and development of heater control for a flexible embedded microheater (7000 /Lm x 9000 /Lm) for a lab-on-a-chip system. Our work focuses on advancing the PWM-based control system with the goal of reducing the system time constant. We also present the fabrication of an embedded flexible microheater in a PDMS substrate. We validate the efficacy of the flexible microheater and its control system by using it for glucose detection. A steady state temperature in the range of 40° C to 120° C is achieved in approximately 40 s, with the heater's power consumption ranging from 0.4 W to 2 W. The novelty of the work lies in that we have made a small, flexible, low-cost chip without the use of sophisticated equipment or conventional fabrication techniques.