Patent ID: 9575063
Date: 2017-02-21
CPC Classifications: G01N

Claim:
1. A flow cytometer comprising an optical engine, a flow cell, and a pump in fluid communication with an aspiration needle for aspirating and delivering a suspension of cells through the flow cell, wherein the optical engine comprises: a) a set of lasers, each tuned to a wavelength suited for excitation of fluorescent molecules; b) a different set of beam shaping optics for each laser, wherein each set comprises two lenses to adjustably focus a beam horizontally along an x-axis to a same horizontal position and vertically along a y-axis to a different vertical position along a same plane, wherein the plane is characterized as a flow path through a flow cell of the flow cytometer; c) collection optics for collecting fluorescence from the flow cell; d) filtration optics that filter the collected fluorescence from the flow cell into different filter channels according to wavelength ranges; and e) a detector for each filter channel that converts the filtered fluorescence to electrical signals, wherein electrical signals are processed so that the fluorescence from each laser at the different vertical positions is distinguished at the same detector.