Patent ID: 8288739

Claim:
A method for measuring an optical property of a fluorescent sample, the method comprising: storing multiple bi-spectral characteristics in advance; measuring excitation efficiencies of a fluorescent sample by multiple excitation illuminations whose spectral distributions are different from each other in an excitation region of the fluorescent sample, wherein the measuring excitation efficiencies comprises: illuminating the fluorescent sample by the multiple excitation illuminations; measuring spectral distributions of the multiple excitation illuminations, and radiations from the fluorescent sample illuminated by the excitation illuminations; and obtaining the excitation efficiencies of the fluorescent sample illuminated by the multiple excitation illuminations based on the measured spectral distributions of the excitation illuminations and the radiations: selecting bi-spectral characteristics out of the stored multiple bi-spectral characteristics based on ratios between the measured excitation efficiencies, wherein the selecting bi-spectral characteristics comprises: calculating the ratios between the excitation efficiencies by the multiple excitation illuminations; discriminating the calculated ratios based on predetermined threshold values; and selecting bi-spectral characteristics out of the stored multiple bi-spectral characteristics based on the discrimination results; and obtaining an optical property of the fluorescent sample based on the selected bi-spectral characteristics.