Patent ID: 8115924

Claim:
An optical characteristic measuring apparatus for measuring an optical characteristic of a sample containing a fluorescent material, the apparatus comprising: an illuminating section for irradiating first illumination light and second illumination light to illuminate the sample; a spectral analyzer for measuring spectral distributions of light emitted from the sample; and a processor for calculating the optical characteristic of the sample based on information obtained by successively irradiating the first illumination light and the second illumination light, and measuring the spectral distributions by the spectral analyzer, wherein the first illumination light and the second illumination light have spectral distributions different from each other in relative spectral distributions thereof between an excitation wavelength region and a fluorescent wavelength region of the fluorescent material, the spectral analyzer includes a sequentially-readable charge storage sensor array having a plurality of light receiving elements for respectively receiving wavelength components of the light emitted from the sample, the sequentially-readable charge storage sensor array being adapted to integrate the wavelength components received by the light receiving elements at phase different from each other, and perform a readout operation, the charge storage sensor array performs the integration and the readout operation plural times, and the processor measures the optical characteristic of the sample by controlling irradiation of the first illumination light and the second illumination light in such a manner that a period for irradiating the second illumination light onto the sample is included in an integration period of each of the light receiving elements for receiving a wavelength component of fluoresced light from the sample.