About MEA impedance measurement and analysis

Guillaume Jean-Paul Claude Becq (1) , Guillaume Bienkowski (2) , Jean-Paul Diard (2) , Catherine Villard (3)

1 GIPSA-Services - GIPSA-Services
2 LEPMI - Laboratoire d'Electrochimie et de Physico-chimie des Matériaux et des Interfaces
3 NEEL - TPS - Thermodynamique et biophysique des petits systèmes

The electrode impedance Z is an important parameter for the MEA detection of neural activity. Beside the commonly admitted fact that a low Z at 1 kHz increases the signal to noise ratio, the knowledge of the Z(f) variation inside a larger frequency range is essential to simulate realistic extra-cellular data suitable for validation of spike sorting algorithms. We have thus built an experimental set-up allowing an automated MEA impedance spectroscopy. It appears clearly that Z cannot be simply described by classical electrical circuits : electrochemical circuits including for example Warburg impedance show better concordance with experimental data. Lastly, great care must be taken when giving a Z value, as it is for example strongly time dependent.

Mots clés: MEA; impedance

Domaines: Micro et nanotechnologies/Microélectronique

Guillaume Jean-Paul Claude Becq, Guillaume Bienkowski, Jean-Paul Diard, Catherine Villard. About MEA impedance measurement and analysis. MEA 2008 - 6th international meeting on substrate-integrated micro electrode arrays, Jul 2008, Reutlingen, Germany. pp.277-278. ⟨hal-00318561⟩