Methods and apparatuses for fluorospectrometric measurements of low photon budget samples

Abstract

A method for calibrating fluorospectrometric measurements obtained on a spectrometric device is disclosed. Calibration methods of this disclosure utilizes non-fluorescent emissions of water, primarily Raman scattering signals of water, as a calibration reference. For aqueous samples containing minute amounts of fluorescent analytes, the spectrometric measurements of samples obtained will contain both fluorescent emission and non-fluorescent emission, including water Raman scattering. Calibration factors based on the water Raman peaks are provided. Spectra of samples may be compared to each other by calibrating the spectral readings against the calibration factors. Also disclosed are apparatus useful for performing the calibration methods, including lens array for enhancing the optics of spectrometric measurements and water Raman calibration methods, spectrometric devices configured to perform the calibration methods, and computer-readable medium encoding the calibration method.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.