Pulsed laser and bioanalytic system

A bioanalytic instrument comprising:

• a pulsed laser system configured to produce optical excitation pulses at a single characteristic wavelength, the pulsed laser comprising:
• a base plate having a maximum edge length between approximately 20 cm and approximately 40 cm;
• a gain medium mounted on the base plate;
• a first end mirror mounted on the base plate located on a first end of a laser cavity;
• a saturable-absorber mirror mounted on the base plate and forming a second end mirror for the laser cavity;
• at least one optically reflecting component mounted on the base plate providing a plurality of reflections that extend the length of the laser cavity, such that the pulsed laser is configured to produce the optical excitation pulses by passive mode locking at a repetition rate between 50 MHz and 200 MHz;
• a receptacle for receiving a bio-optoelectronic chip and making electrical connections and an optical coupling with the bio-optoelectronic chip, wherein the bio-optoelectronic chip supports sequential incorporation of nucleotides or nucleotide analogs into a growing strand that is complementary to a target nucleic acid;
• beam-steering optics arranged to direct the excitation pulses towards the receptacle;
• and
• a signal processor configured to receive signals representative of fluorescent emission induced by the excitation pulses at the single characteristic wavelength and process the received signals to determine the identity of four different nucleotides or nucleotide analogs incorporated into the growing strand, wherein the received signals correspond to the sequential incorporation of nucleotides or nucleotide analogs into the growing strand.

A bioanalytic instrument comprising:

• a laser configured to produce pulsed excitation energy at a single characteristic wavelength, the laser comprising:
• a base plate having a maximum edge length between approximately 20 cm and approximately 40 cm;
• a gain medium mounted on the base plate;
• a first end mirror mounted on the base plate located at a first end of a laser cavity;
• a saturable-absorber mirror mounted on the base plate and forming a second end mirror or the laser cavity;
• at least one optically reflecting component mounted on the base plate providing a plurality of reflections that extend the length of the laser cavity, such that the pulsed laser is configured to produce optical pulses by passive mode locking at a repetition rate between 50 MHz and 200 MHz;
• and
• a clock-generation circuit configured to synchronize a first clock signal from an electronic or electro-mechanical oscillator to a second clock signal produced from detection of the optical pulses from the laser and to provide the synchronized first clock signal to time data-acquisition by the bioanalytic instrument.