Thermal behavior of high-performance temperature programmed microfabricated gas chromatography columns

This paper reports the thermal behavior of high-performance Si-glass /spl mu/GC separation columns having integrated heaters and temperature sensors. These 3m-long columns, integrated on a 3.25 cm/spl times/3.25 cm die, were fabricated using a DRIE process and sealed with a glass cap. Demonstrating the contributions to heat dissipation from conduction, convection, and radiation with and without packaging, it is shown that using a 7.5 mm-high atmospheric package reduces power consumption to less than 650 mW at 100/spl deg/C, while vacuum packaging reduces power requirements to less than 100 mW. The paper points the way toward low-power temperature-programmed devices and identifies the limits for ultra-low power applications.