Thermal Cyclers

Thermal cyclers are laboratory instruments capable of generating and maintaining specific temperatures for a defined period of time.  Specific devices are similar to either batch heaters or chillers in that they heat or cool only.  Unlike large-scale batch heaters or chillers, thermal cyclers are designed to handle a small number of microplates (usually one or two), allowing for uniform temperature maintenance across all samples.  As with all devices used with microplates, thermal cyclers are designed to handle either of the microplate sizes (typically 96 or 384); although some varieties can handle both.