Method and system for reading microarrays
AssigneeAcademia Sinica
InventorPei-Kuen Wei
Life of this patent
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Abstract
The present invention is a method for providing light onto a thin light transparent substrate comprising the steps of passing noncoherent light through a fiber optic line light guide to produce line light; and impinging the line light onto the edge of the substrate to produce an evanescent planar wave on the surface of the substrate. This method is specifically useful in reading fluorescent signals from microarrays placed on a light transparent substrate.
Claims23
A method for providing light onto a thin light transparent substrate, having an edge and two opposing surfaces, comprising the steps of:
- passing noncoherent light through a fiber optic line light guide to produce line light;
- impinging the line light onto the edge of the substrate to produce an evanescent planar wave on at least one of the surfaces of the substrate.
A method of detecting a fluorescent material on a thin light transparent substrate, having two opposing edges and two opposing surfaces, comprising the steps of:
- passing noncoherent light through a fiber optic line light guide to produce line light;
- impinging the line light onto at least one of the edge of the substrate to produce an evanescent planar wave on at least one of the surfaces of the substrate;
- exciting the fluorescent material by the evanescent planar wave;
- and detecting the emission from the fluorescent material.
A system for detecting a fluorescent material on a thin light transparent substrate, having two opposing edges and two opposing surfaces, comprising:
- a. a light source emitting an excitation white light;
- b. a first fiber optic line light guide to convert the excitation white light into a line light, and to impinge the line light onto a first edge of the substrate to produce an evanescent planar wave on at least one of the surfaces of the substrate to thereby excite the fluorescent material;
- and
- c. a detector to detect the emission from the fluorescent material.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.