Devices, systems and methods for loading samples
AssigneePerkinElmer Health Sciences, Inc.
InventorsNigel Thornton Hopley White, Steven Edward Liebold, Gary Vincent Millard
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Certain embodiments described herein are directed to devices and system that can be used to fill a sample cell. In some examples, the system can be configured with a pressure device configured to provide a negative pressure to accelerate filling of the cell with the sample. In some embodiments, the negative pressure can be used to fill a flow cell at a selected fill rate.
Claims21
A system configured to accelerate viscous sample flow into a flow cell, the system comprising:
- a sample introduction device configured to provide a positive pressure;
- a flow cell fluidically coupled to the sample introduction device and configured to receive sample under the positive pressure from the sample introduction device through a fluid inlet of the flow cell;
- a timing fluid line between the sample introduction device and the fluid inlet of the flow cell, the timing fluid line sized and arranged to provide a reference sample from the sample introduction device to the flow cell at a reference time;
- a sensor fluidically coupled to the timing fluid line and at the fluid inlet of the flow cell, the sensor configured to determine a time of arrival of the sample;
- a valve fluidically coupled to the flow cell at an outlet of the flow cell;
- and
- a pressure device fluidically coupled to the valve downstream of the valve, the pressure device configured to provide a negative pressure to the flow cell when the valve is in a second state to accelerate flow of the sample into the flow cell and configured to be fluidically decoupled from the flow cell when the valve is in a first state to permit sample to flow into the flow cell under the positive pressure provided by the sample introduction device.
A system comprising a flow cell fluidically coupled to a valve downstream of the flow cell and to a pressure device downstream of the valve, the flow cell fluidically coupled to the pressure device when the valve is in a second state to accelerate sample into an inlet of the flow cell, in which the flow cell is fluidically decoupled from the pressure device when the valve is in a first state to permit sample to flow into the flow cell under positive pressure without acceleration of the sample into the flow cell, a sensor positioned at the inlet of the flow cell and configured to determine a time of arrival of the sample at the sensor, a processor electrically coupled to the sensor and configured to determine if the valve should be switched from the first state to the second state using a reference time and a time of arrival of the sample at the sensor, and a fluid flow line fluidically coupled to the inlet of the flow cell, in which the fluid flow line is sized and arranged to provide a reference sample to the flow cell at a reference time.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.