In the emerging field of deformable microfluidics, we propose a new geometry in which the height and angle of a channel are controlled, thanks to the deformability of the microfluidic elastomer down to thicknesses of a few microns. The particularity of our set-up is that the height of the channel under study is fully closed at rest, which reveals especially well suited to address micro-nanoconfinement problems such as clogging, transport selectivity and flow rectification. Using fluorescence microscopy and light absorption, we probe the channel shape from the measurement of the PDMS-displacement field. We demonstrate that the maximal PDMS displacement can be inferred from finite elements numerical simulations and predicted reliably with simple analytical relations from elasticity continuum mechanics.

在新兴的可变形微流体领域，我们提出了一种新的几何形状，其中由于微流体弹性体的可变形性低至几微米的厚度，因此可以控制通道的高度和角度。我们设置的特殊之处在于，所研究的通道的高度在静止时完全封闭，这表明它特别适合解决微纳米约束问题，例如堵塞，运输选择性和流量校正。使用荧光显微镜和光吸收，我们通过测量PDMS位移场来探测通道形状。我们证明，最大PDMS位移可以从有限元数值模拟中推断出，并且可以通过弹性连续体力学中的简单解析关系可靠地预测。