Patent ID: 11946850
Assignee: IMEC VZW
Field: Measurement (Instruments)
Classification: CPC G | IPC G

Claim 0:
1. A device for detecting particles in air; said device comprising:
a receiver for receiving a flow of air comprising particles;
a particle capturing arrangement comprising a particle separator for separating particles from the flow of air and a particle collector for collecting the separated particles, the particle collector being in communication with a flow of a liquid that receives the collected particles;
a flow channel configured to pass the flow of the liquid comprising the particles through the flow channel;
a light source for forming an interference pattern of the particles, the light source being configured to illuminate the particles in the flow of the liquid in the flow channel and form an interference pattern by interference between light being scattered by the particles in the flow of the liquid and non-scattered light from the light source;
an image sensor comprising a plurality of photo-sensitive elements configured to detect incident light, the image sensor being configured to detect the interference pattern of the particles in the flow of the liquid without the interference pattern passing a microscope objective; and
one or more processors configured to:
perform digital holographic reconstruction on the interference pattern detected by the image sensor to generate an image of the particles, wherein the particle capturing arrangement is configured to set a particle concentration in the liquid such that the image is a digital holographic reconstruction of two or more particles; and
identify particles of pollen in the digital holographic reconstruction of two or more particles by comparing the digital holographic reconstruction of two or more particles to one or more particle morphology of pollen.