A Thermal Cycler based on Solid-state Active Heat Pump and PID Control Algorithm toward Biomedical Applications

The demand for a compact, easy-to-use and precise thermal cycler is always extremely high in biomedical field due to the decisive role of temperature in determining the accuracy of many biomedical applications. In this study, a new design of thermal cycler is proposed to improve the ease of manipulation as well as production process while maintaining the required accuracy of temperature handling. Specifically, a semiconductor component called Peltier is utilized as the main heat generation source in this work, which offers an operation range of 15-80°C. As Peltier has already been mass produced in the market and gained its popularity by appearing in many home appliances, the production cost and time could be minimized. Additionally, by applying the PID control algorithm, the accuracy of the proposed system could be maintained (maximum variation within 1°C in case of Isothermal Amplification and 2°C in case of Temperature Cycling Amplification) as compared with other thermal cyclers with sophisticated heating technology. The thermal cycler proposed in this work is expected to be further developed to be integrated into the microfluidic chip for rapid virus detection applications.