Apparatus for imaging particles in a liquid flow
AssigneeToa Medical Electronics Co., Ltd.
InventorTokihiro Kosaka
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An apparatus for imaging and analyzing particle components in a sample liquid flow containing particle components such as blood and urine, or fine particles of organic high polymer in suspension or the like. A conventional particle imaging flow cytometer is combined with a light source such as a lamp with small coherence, and an image intensifier with gate function of high response, so that a clear particle image without a deflection or interference fringe is obtained. Thus, in the apparatus having the still imaging function, by using the image intensifier with a high speed gate function, even with a light source of a long luminous time such as a lamp, a clear still image of a particle flowing at high speed is obtained.
Claims4
An apparatus for imaging particles in a liquid flow, the liquid flow forming a sheath flow by passing a sheath of liquid around a sample flow containing particles to be detected, emitting light to the sample flow, detecting light signals from the particles, processing the signals in a signal processing unit, and analyzing the particles, comprising:
- a light source for illuminating particles by emitting incoherent light which does not induce interference, to a sample flow region of the liquid flow;
- an image intensifier for receiving the transmitted light of the particles in the sample flow region, for intensifying an input, feeble image, and producing a bright image, said image intensifier having a shutter;
- a video camera for capturing the image of the image intensifier and generating a video signal;
- an image processing unit for processing the video signal from the video camera;
- a signal processing unit;
- and
- detecting means for detecting the existence of particles in the sample flow region and generating a particle signal S1;
- wherein:
- the image intensifier is an image intensifier provided with a high speed gate;
- and
- the signal processing unit generates a trigger signal S2 for emitting the light from the light source for illuminating a particle on the basis of the detection of the particle signal S1, and while the light source is radiating, generating a gate signal S3 for opening the shutter of the image intensifier.
An apparatus for imaging particles in a liquid flow for forming a sheath flow by passing a sheath of liquid around a sample flow containing particles to be detected, emitting light to the sample flow, detecting light signals from the particles, processing the signals in a signal processing unit, and analyzing the particles, comprising:
- a light source for illuminating particles for emitting incoherent light to a sample flow region of the liquid flow;
- spectral means for dividing the transmitted light of the particles in the sample flow region into components of three wavelength regions of red, green and blue;
- a plurality of image intensifiers for receiving the transmitted light from a respective one the divided three components, each image intensifier having a shutter;
- a plurality of video cameras for capturing the images of a respective image intensifier and each generating a video signal;
- an image processing unit for processing the video signals from the video cameras as signals R, G, B;
- a signal processing unit;
- and
- detecting means for detecting the existence of particles in the sample flow region and generating a particle signal S1;
- wherein;
- the image intensifiers are image intensifiers provided with high speed gates;
- and
- the signal processing unit generates a trigger signal S2 for emitting the light from the light source for illuminating a particle on the basis of the detection of the particle signal S1, and while the light source is being radiated, generating a gate signal S3 for opening the shutters of the image intensifiers.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.