An apparatus for characterizing luminescent entities by excitation comprising: • a substrate (6) being in contact with a solution comprising luminescent entities; • a source of electromagnetic radiation (4) providing at least a primary beam of radiation (8); an objective (5); a first optical element (1) capable of transforming the intensity profile of the primary beam (8) into an arbitrary secondary intensity profile (distribution) (9); a second optical element (2) capable of separating (discriminating) radiation by wavelength; and a detector (7), where the arbitrary secondary intensity profile has at least an off-center circular continuous intensity distribution (33) focused on the back focal plane (12) of the objective forming a collimated beam (10) capable of creating an evanescent field on the side of the substrate where the solution comprising luminescent entities are located, where the evanescent field excites the luminescent entities thereby creating emission radiation separated by the second optical element (2) and captioned by the detector (7). The invention also relates to an apparatus comprising two optical elements providing a final third intensity profile (distribution) which is the convolution of two mathematical transformations corresponding to each of optical element one and four, respectively.

The invention relates to an apparatus for simultaneously analysing luminescence of a plurality of samples. The apparatus comprises a fibre-optic plate.

A fluorescence detection system, including apparatus and methods, suitable for qPCR and other fluorescence-based analyses. The system may comprise various components, including a stage, an illumination module, a detection module, and an optical relay structure. The stage may be configured to support a sample holder. The illumination module may include one or more discrete light sources configured to produce excitation light. The detection module may be configured to detect fluorescence emission light produced, in response to the excitation light, by a fluorescent sample positioned in the sample holder. The optical relay structure may include a beamsplitter assembly configured to direct the excitation light from the illumination module along an illumination path to the sample holder and to direct the fluorescence emission light from the sample holder along a response path to the imaging module. The system may enhance the quality of excitation light hitting samples in the sample holder.

In one embodiment, a sample surface of a biosensor includes pixel areas and holds a plurality of clusters during a sequence of sampling events such that the clusters are distributed unevenly over the pixel areas. In another embodiment, a biosensor has a sample surface that includes pixel areas and an array of wells overlying the pixel areas, the biosensor including two wells and two clusters per pixel area. The two wells per pixel area include a dominant well and a subordinate well. The dominant well has a larger cross section over the pixel area than the subordinate well. In yet another embodiment, an illumination system is coupled to a biosensor that illuminates the pixel areas with different angles of illumination during a sequence of sampling events, including, for a sampling event, illuminating each of the wells with off-axis illumination to produce asymmetrically illuminated well regions in each of the wells.

Arrays of integrated analytical devices and their methods for production are provided. The arrays are useful in the analysis of highly multiplexed optical reactions in large numbers at high densities, including biochemical reactions, such as nucleic acid sequencing reactions. The devices allow the highly sensitive discrimination of optical signals using features such as spectra, amplitude, and time resolution, or combinations thereof. The devices include an integrated diffractive beam shaping element that provides for the spatial separation of light emitted from the optical reactions.

A biological sample image collection device (100), comprising support (30) and an optical imaging assembly (50), also comprises: a plurality of movable platforms (40), for placing biological samples (20) wherein the plurality of movable platforms (40) are arranged on the support (30) in an array; the plurality of movable platforms (40) can move relative to the support (30); and forces acting on the support (30) during the movement of the movable platforms can cancel each other out, so as to avoid vibrations affecting the support (30) and the biological samples (20) are canceled. The optical imaging assembly (50) collects images of the biological samples (20) on the movable platforms (40) when the plurality of movable platforms (40) move, relative to the center of the array, in the same direction and at the same speed. Further provided is a gene sequencer including the biological sample image collection device (100).

A system (100) and a method for detecting fluorescence is disclosed. The system (100) essentially comprises a labelled sample wherein said labelled sample emits an electromagnetic radiation of a defined wavelength when irradiated by a LASER beam of a commensurate wavelength, a source (102) for emitting said LASER beam, oriented as to aim at said labelled sample, a chamber for holding said labelled sample during said LASER irradiation, a reflective layer (108) positioned to reflect said electromagnetic radiation, and a detector (112) positioned to detect and amplify said electromagnetic radiation. The method essentially comprises the steps of providing a labelled sample wherein said labelled sample emits an electromagnetic radiation of a defined wavelength when irradiated by a LASER beam of a commensurate wavelength, providing a source (102) for emitting said LASER beam, oriented as to aim at said labelled sample, providing a chamber for holding said labelled sample during said LASER irradiation, providing a reflective layer (108) positioned to reflect said electromagnetic radiation, providing a detector (112) positioned to detect and amplify said electromagnetic radiation, irradiating said sample with said LASER beam and analyzing said amplified electromagnetic radiation from said detector (112) with a signal processing block (114).

The present invention relates to a detector for measuring fluorescence in a liquid sample and to devices for biochemical analyses comprising it, in particular to devices for performing analyses of real time PCR. The detector of the present invention has a series of advantages such as drastic simplification of the detection configuration, reduced costs, better performances due to the greater freedom in planning the optical configuration which allows dividing the detector itself into independent areas.

An assay device is disclosed comprising a housing and a test portion, electronic circuitry and an optical assembly each a least partially located in the housing. The test portion comprises one or more test zones adapted to receive an analyte and a fluorescent label associated with the analyte, the fluorescent label being excitable by excitation light and adapted to emit emission light upon excitation by excitation light. The electronic circuitry comprises one or more light sources and one or more light detectors. The optical assembly comprises one or more excitation light guides adapted to guide excitation light from the one or more light sources to the one or more test zones, and/or one or more emission light guides adapted to guide emission light from the one or more test zone to the one or more light detectors.

A light-emission detection apparatus is provided for individually condensing light emitted from each emission point of an emission-point array using each condensing lens of a condensing-lens array to forma light beam and detecting each light beam incident on a sensor in parallel. The light-emission detection apparatus can be downsized and high sensitivity and low crosstalk can be simultaneously accomplished when a certain relation between the diameter of each emission point, a focal length of each condensing lens, an interval of condensing lenses, and an optical path length between each condensing lens and a sensor is satisfied.