Parylene gas chromatographic column for rapid thermal cycling

Abstract

This paper presents a parylene gas chromatographic column with an embedded heating element. The parylene coating on a silicon microchannel and parylene/parylene thermal bonding technique were employed to fabricate a parylene column. The heating element is a thin gold film evaporated on the corrugated surface of the parylene column having long and rectangular geometry. Joule heating via the thin gold film is a very effective heating system for a parylene column. ANSYS heat transfer analysis was performed to investigate the thermal cycling and temperature uniformity of the parylene column. The parylene column showed much faster heating and cooling rates as well as lower power consumption compared to a silicon/glass column. The temperature difference between the top and the bottom of a parylene column that is due to the low thermal conductivity of parylene could be reduced to less than 0.1 K by inserting a thin metal layer between two parylene layers, forming a triple layer structure (parylene/platinum/parylene).