A comprehensive analytical and numerical study of the thermal behaviour of micro scale heater structures has been carried out. Based on the differential equations describing conduction and convection of heat, an analytical model of a micro scale heater structure for the use in micro hotplate gas sensors was developed. The model thoroughly describes the transient and static thermal device characteristics. Based on the analytical model and solution, a numerical model was developed and solved, resulting in a highly accurate description of the later fabricated SiC based device with the aim of optimising the device power consumption and thermal response time. Furthermore, by comparing the simulated results of a fabricated hotplate device with the actually measured characteristics, not only the general overall accurateness of the used model could be confirmed, but also the exact material properties as function of surrounding air pressure and temperature and the boundary conditions applied could be confirmed. Thus, the validity of the analytical model was proved.
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