Patent ID: 6281018
Filing Date: 2001-08-28
Classification: G01N

Abstract:
A flow cytometer comprising a channel, through which a carrier fluid stream containing at least a prescribed component and potentially components other than said prescribed component flows, and which is intercepted by an optical energy beam illumination and detector subsystem, said subsystem being operative to generate output signals representative of contents of successive ones of contiguous droplet precursor regions as illuminated by said optical energy beam, said fluid stream containing a sequence of contiguous droplet precursor regions, that will eventually become, but are not yet formed into, droplets that are separated from said fluid stream by a downstream droplet generator to which said channel is coupled, and a droplet sorter through which said respective droplet pass, said droplet sorter being operative to sort said respective droplet to one of a plurality of droplet collection paths in response to an output signal generated by said subsystem being representative of the presence of said prescribed component in a selected number of droplet precursor regions within first, second and third pluralities of contiguous droplet precursor regions, and in accordance with contents of contiguous droplet precursor regions of said first, second and third pluralities of contiguous droplet precursor regions, other than said selected number of contiguous droplet precursor regions, said first, second and third pluralities of contiguous droplet precursor regions corresponding to respective first, second and third droplets that are separated from said fluid stream.