Discussion Forum

Hi,

I am quite new to comsol and would love to receive some advice on better modeling my system!

I have a simple 2D axisymmetric model describing a 100 um water domain sandwiched between a glass slide and a coverslip. These materials are part of my experimental conditions where I have a temperature controlled chamber (ITO glass slide warming my water sample to a prescribed temperature) and I am irradiating my sample with a focused laser with a gaussian distribution (FWHM 1 um). I have modeled the laser, that is not the problem. The problem I am running into is how to describe the boundary conditions (i.e. the coverslip and the glass slide). If i set them to be temperature to 37 C, this will cause my solution of my temperature radial profile induced by the laser heating to converge to 37 C towards these interfaces. But this is not what happens experimentally. The heat will diffuse radially and will not constrained by the 37 C boundaries, but will have an elevated temperature, even though the glass slide is still heating at a constant 37C. How do i effectively set my boundary conditions so that they don't force the solution to 37 but rather continue to provide a 37 C boundary heat but also taking into account the heat coming from the laser!

I hope I made everything clear and look forward to anyone who can help me in this regard!!

Thanks, Ben