Patent ID: 8797526

Claim:
A method for the automated thermal treatment of liquid samples comprising: varying an inter-distance between a temperature-controlled receptacle for loading with a plurality of vessels for containing said samples and end portions of optical fibers, wherein said receptacle is configured to form a thermal communication with said loaded vessels and wherein said optical fibers have first and second end portions, said first end portion and said second end portion of each optical fiber being fixed with respect to each other for transmitting light, said variation of said inter-distance allowing the vessels to be loaded to or unloaded from said receptacle and to allow detection of light from said samples contained in said one or more receptacle-loaded vessels, the second end portions have a stochastic lateral position, the method further including: determining a mapping between the first and second end portions of the optical fibers, and saving the mapping between the first and second end portions of the optical fibers in a data storage obtaining a picture of send end faces of the second end portions of emission fibers by detectors without having a one-to-one mapping between the second end faces and pixels of the detectors, processing the picture to determine the light intensity from each emission fiber, attributing the determined light intensity to a particular vessel based on the one-to-one mapping information of the first and second end portions of the emission fibers.