Patent ID: 8095322

Claim:
A method of determining cross-talk coefficients for a Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) optical detection system having at least two optical elements, each optical element operable to isolate a different specific electromagnetic wavelength range, the method comprising the steps, implemented in a processor, of: receiving, for each optical element, a PCR data set acquired over a data acquisition range of a PCR growth process, wherein the data acquisition range represents a plurality of PCR cycles, and wherein each PCR data set includes a data value for each PCR cycle in the acquisition range; receiving, for each other optical element, a cross-talk data set acquired over the acquisition range simultaneously with the PCR data set, and wherein each cross-talk data set includes a data value for each PCR cycle in the acquisition range; and determining cross-talk coefficients using the PCR and cross-talk data sets over the acquisition range, wherein determining includes, for each optical element, minimizing a sum of the squares between each PCR data set and cross-talk data set over the acquisition range using an equation of the form: min ⁡ [ ∑ i ⁢ ⁢ ( XTSignal i - q * Signal i ) 2 ] , wherein i is a PCR cycle number, wherein Signal i is the PCR data value for cycle i for each optical element, wherein XTSignal i is the cross-talk data value for cycle i for each other optical element, and wherein q is a multiplicative gain factor.