System and method for controlled intensity illumination in a bioanalysis or other system

• Main Authors: Jaffe Steven M, Jaffe Claudia B, Larsen David
• Format: Patent
• Language: English
• Published: 23.05.2017
• Subjects: BLASTING; COLORIMETRY; ELECTRIC HEATING; ELECTRIC LIGHTING NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR; ELECTRIC TECHNIQUES NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR; ELECTRICITY; FUNCTIONAL FEATURES OR DETAILS OF LIGHTING DEVICES OR SYSTEMSTHEREOF; HEATING; INVESTIGATING OR ANALYSING MATERIALS BY DETERMINING THEIRCHEMICAL OR PHYSICAL PROPERTIES; LIGHTING; MEASUREMENT OF INTENSITY, VELOCITY, SPECTRAL CONTENT,POLARISATION, PHASE OR PULSE CHARACTERISTICS OF INFRA-RED,VISIBLE OR ULTRA-VIOLET LIGHT; MEASURING; MECHANICAL ENGINEERING; OPTICAL ELEMENTS, SYSTEMS, OR APPARATUS; OPTICS; PHYSICS; RADIATION PYROMETRY; STRUCTURAL COMBINATIONS OF LIGHTING DEVICES WITH OTHERARTICLES, NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR; TESTING; WEAPONS

A system and method for metered dosage illumination in a bioanalysis or other system. In accordance with an embodiment, an illumination system or subsystem is described that can provide optimized amounts of excitation light within the short exposure times necessary to measure fast biological activity. The amount of light can be precisely measured to provide quantitative results. The light flux can also be precisely controlled to generate only a prescribed minimum amount of light, in order to reduce adverse lighting effects on both fluors and samples. Although the examples herein illustrate the providing of metered dosage illumination in the context of a bioanalysis system, the techniques can be similarly used to provide metered dosage illumination in the context of other types of system. In accordance with various embodiments, the technique is particularly useful in any quality-control, analysis, or assessment-based environment. Typical research and development applications can include quality control, instrument calibration, and light output standardization; while clinical and diagnostics applications can include clinical monitoring, bioassay calibration and control for diagnostics, treatment and or therapeutic evaluation.