Miniaturized calorimeter for thermal screening of energetic materials

The use of chip-scale calorimeters for research and development has increased during the last two decades. The high sensitivity of these devices allows their use for characterization of very small amounts of sample. However, the potential for using them for screening of highly energetic materials (i.e., explosives) has not been fully explored. In this paper, we present the design aspects of two chip-scale calorimeter prototypes based on thick silicon membranes for liquid and solid thermal characterizations. The ultimate goal of the proposed work is to produce a portable calorimeter that can be incorporated as a new approach for detection of highly energetic materials such as explosives based on the information obtained from the calorimeter. The concept of this application is that indirect detection via the determination of thermal energy released in exothermic reactions can be detected by chip-scale calorimetric sensors. Details about the calorimeter design using finite element analysis are presented along with the fabrication procedure of the proposed sensor. Finally, preliminary results that provide experimental validation of the device design are presented.