Pressure-actuated PDMS valves have been characterized with respect to their electromechanical properties. Measurements of the valve opening and closing times, threshold pressures, and impedance spectra for closed valves can be used to assess the quality of the devices in general, determine their suitability for specialized applications, such as providing electrical isolated fluidic compartments for planar patch clamping, and specify ideal operating conditions. For our particular valve designs, we report valve opening times of the order of ten to hundred microseconds, making them suitable for rapid buffer exchange applications. They can effectively provide reversible electrical isolation between adjacent fluidic compartments with typical resistances of 5 GΩ in the closed state, which meets the gigaohm requirement for patch clamping applications.
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