title: Note: Development of a microfabricated sensor to measure thermal conductivity of picoliter scale liquid samples.
abstract: This paper presents a thermal analysis device, which can measure thermal conductivity of picoliter scale liquid sample. We employ the three omega method with a microfabricated AC thermal sensor with nanometer width heater. The liquid sample is confined by a micro-well structure fabricated on the sensor surface. The performance of the instrument was verified by measuring the thermal conductivity of 27-picoliter samples of de-ionized (DI) water, ethanol, methanol, and DI water-ethanol mixtures with accuracies better than 3%. Furthermore, another analytical scheme allows real-time thermal conductivity measurement with 5% accuracy. To the best of our knowledge, this technique requires the smallest volume of sample to measure thermal property ever.
authors.affiliation: Department of Mechanical Engineering, POSTECH, Pohang 790-784, South Korea.
authors.forename: Byoung Kyoo
authors.initials: BK
authors.lastname: Park
authors.forename: Namwoo
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Yi
authors.forename: Jaesung
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Park
authors.forename: Dongsik
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Kim
mesh_terms: D003217:Conductometry / Q000295:instrumentation*; D004735:Energy Transfer; D004867:Equipment Design; D019544:Equipment Failure Analysis; D055617:Micro-Electrical-Mechanical Systems / Q000295:instrumentation*; D044085:Microfluidics / Q000295:instrumentation*; D013814:Thermal Conductivity; D013817:Thermography / Q000295:instrumentation*; D014159:Transducers