Uniform epi-illumination of planar samples

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-8985808-B2
Application number	US-201313740590-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jan 14, 2013
Priority date	Feb 29, 2012
Publication date	Mar 24, 2015
Grant date	Mar 24, 2015

Abstract

A planar sample, particularly of the type used in biological laboratories for detection and sometimes analysis of two-dimensional arrays of proteins, nucleic acids, or other biological species, is illuminated by epi-illumination using optically filtered line lights that are arranged along opposing parallel sides of a rectangle in which the sample array resides, with two coaxial line lights on each side of the rectangle, and the two on any given side being separated by a gap whose optimal width depends on the wavelength band transmitted by the optical filter. Surprisingly, the gap eliminates the peak in intensity at the center of the sample area and the decrease that occurs from the center outward that would otherwise occur with a single continuous filtered line light, producing instead a substantially uniform intensity along the direction parallel to the line lights.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. An epi-illuminator for a planar sample, said epi-illuminator comprising:
a planar platform with a designated sample area thereon that contains said planar sample;
LED line lights mounted above said planar platform when said planar platform is horizontal, with at least two said line lights positioned along, and parallel to, each of two opposing parallel sides of said sample area and an optical bandpass filter between each said line light and said sample are…

Assignees

• Bio Rad Laboratories

Inventors

• Hillendahl James W
• Perez Evelio

Classifications

• G01N21/255 Primary

  Physics · mapped topic

• G01N2021/6463

  Physics · mapped topic

• F21V9/083

  Mechanical Engineering · mapped topic

• F21V13/02

  Mechanical Engineering · mapped topic

• G01N2201/0626

  Physics · mapped topic