Integrated membrane-free thermal flow sensor for silicon-on-glass microfluidics

TL;DR

This paper introduces a membrane-free thermal flow sensor integrated into silicon-glass microfluidic chips, offering precise, corrosion-resistant flow measurement suitable for lab-on-a-chip applications.

Contribution

The work presents a novel membrane-free design and fabrication method for a thermal flow sensor compatible with microfluidic chips, enabling accurate flow measurement without added dead volume.

Findings

Achieved less than 5% flow measurement error

Demonstrated sub-second response time

Validated long-term stability over hundreds of hours

Abstract

Lab-on-a-chip (LOC) forms the basis of the new-generation portable analytical systems. LOC allows the manipulation of ultralow flows of liquid reagents and multistep reactions on a microfluidic chip, which requires a robust and precise instrument to control the flow of liquids on a chip. However, commercially available flow meters appear to be a standalone option adding a significant dead volume of tubes for connection to the chip. Furthermore, most of them cannot be fabricated within the same technological cycle as microfluidic channels. Here, we report on a membrane-free microfluidic thermal flow sensor (MTFS) that can be integrated into a silicon-glass microfluidic chip with a microchannel topology. We propose a membrane-free design with thin-film thermo-resistive sensitive elements isolated from microfluidic channels and 100 mm wafers silicon-glass fabrication route. It ensures MTFS compatibility with corrosive liquids, which is critically important for biological applications. MTFS design rules for the best sensitivity and measurement range are proposed. A method for automated thermo-resistive sensitive elements calibration is described. The device parameters are experimentally tested for hundreds of hours with a reference Coriolis flow sensor demonstrating a relative flow error of less than 5% within the range of 2-30 uL/min along with a sub-second time response.