Pyroelectric effect control: Design, fabrication, and characterization of a microheaters array for biomedical applications

An innovative microheater array design is realized on a lithium niobate crystal, to induce a uniform pyroelectric effect on an area of 12.5 × 12.5 mm2. Thermal analyses of the device were performed both experimentally and numerically using a FLIR thermocamera and COMSOLTM Multiphysics. A series of preliminary numerical simulations were carried out to obtain the optimized design of the aforementioned specifications. The microheaters were fabricated on the + Z surface of the lithium niobate crystal using a photolithography process followed by titanium thin-film deposition. We performed on this device a series of electrothermal characterizations; the results of the measurements showed good agreement with the numerical model in terms of heat distribution, accomplishing a comparison between the thermal maps coming from the two methodologies