**1. Introduction**

178 The Development and Application of Microwave Heating

[21] U. Bren, A. Krzan, J. Mavri, J. Phys. Chem. A 112 (2008) 166.

Weinheim, Germany, 2005.

[20] C.O. Kappe, A. Stadler, Microwaves in Organic and Medicinal Chemistry, Wiley-VCH,

The science of designing, manufacturing and formulating processes involving fluidic devices having dimensions down to micrometers is known as microfluidics. In the last two decades, in the areas of chemical and biochemical sciences, there has been a great interest towards using microfluidic systems, which are popularly known as micro-total analysis systems (μ-TAS) (Manz et al., 2010) or lab-on-a-chip systems. These systems improve analytical performance and also facilitate incorporating various functions of distributed systems on a single-chip instead of having a separate device for each function (Reyes et al., 2002). Temperature control inside microfluidic cells is often required in a variety of on-chip applications for enhanced results, without significantly affecting the temperatures of other building blocks of the μ-TAS. This is a big challenge because the microfluidic devices on the chip need to be selectively heated.
