Fabrication of micro-heaters by laser micro cladding and micro-pen direct writing

Micro-heaters have been widely applied in different fields such as biology, iatrology, medicine, electronics etc. Different methods can be used to fabricate the micro heaters, including the thick film screen printing technique and the photolithography. However, the fabrication technique is complex and highly cost, which limited the developments of micro-heaters in many occasions. In this report, a new process, which was based on the hybrid process of both micro-pen direct writing and laser heating, was introduced to fabricate the micro-heaters. Compared with the traditional fabrication techniques, this technique is more flexible for its direct fabrication without mask in advance and higher precision with better quality. The fabrication process was described in detail, and the processing parameters that affected the heaters’ quality have been studied systematically. As an application example, a temperature controller array with micro-heaters has been designed and fabricated by this method. Finally, the performances of the controllers were calculated and tested, which showed that the temperature could be controlled by different process parameters.