Researchers at LLNL have designed a new technology that allows the integration of a large bench-top thermal cycling instrument onto a miniaturized instrument. This instrument is powered and controlled by portable thumb-drive systems such as an USB. USB thumb-drives are commonly used to transfer data from the instrument onto a PC, however, in this new technology the thumb drive becomes the instrument itself! LLNL researcher’s technology includes thermocycling configured for low power and efficiency, miniaturization of components and controllers, fabrication on a solid-state thumb drive, and integration with USB data and supplied power. This system uses bus power for thermal cycling and bus data lines for data transmission and programming, which allows for portable power. The system can handle 4 wells of 5uL volume cycling with 5 seconds ramp time which is high performance by compassion to benchtop cycles. Additional wells can also be added. The integration of a thermocycle onto a programmable device allows for a portable power, faster and better use friendly software and the thumb drive can be used on the user’s PC.

US Patent Application 2020/0047184 “Integrated solid-state rapid thermal cycling system” (LLNL internal case # IL-12840).

Contact: vaishnav1@llnl.gov