Time-Temperature Integrating Devices

Recently, our group reported a new application of dewetting of polymer thin films as time-temperature integrator. The idea stems from the knowledge that dewetting of a solid film is an irreversible process exhibiting an activation energy and whose characteristic 

4 Stamp-Assisted Dewetting A Versatile Method for Patterning Soiutions 

---

This switching process - although undoubtedly appealing - was not considered at the time for integration into a molecular electronic device for a number of reasons - one of which being that, although co-conformer A is the most prevalent one in solution, it is not the sole co-conformer . In acetone solution at 213 K - the highest temperature at which the co-... 

Goto et al. demonstrated the integration of a bioassay system that illustrated all processes required for a bioassay, that is, cell culture, chemical stimulation of cells, chemical and enzymatic reactions, and detection, on a chip using CFCP (Figure 35.10). By using the temperature control device, spatial temperature control of the system was possible, with areas on the chip maintained at different temperatures. Nitric oxide released from macrophage-like cells stimulated by lipopolysac-charide was successfully monitored by this system. The total assay time was reduced from 24 to 4 h, and the detection limit for nitric oxide was improved from 1 x 10 m to 7 x 10 M compared with the conventional batch methods. Moreover, the system could monitor a time course of the release, which is difficult to measure by conventional methods. 

The first monolithic devices have been presented at the same time by a group at NIST and a group at the Physical Electronics Laboratory (PEL) of ETH Zurich [77-81]. The NIST chip hosts an array of microhotplates integrated with transistor switches and a readout amplifier for the sensitive layer. The device presented by PEL includes an analog temperature controller and a logarithmic converter for reading out the sensor values. This was the first monolithic realization of an embedded system architecture with integrated microhotplate. 

---