Patent ID: 7170597

Claim:
A method of analysing fluorescence emitted by radiation excited samples in an array of samples, comprising the steps of: focusing light emitted from each sample using objective lenses so as to form parallel beams from samples making up the array; subsequently focusing the parallel beams through a single point and locating at the single point an aperture to filter out light which is not emanating from one of the focal points of the objective lenses; re-establishing a parallel array of light beams by the use of an additional lens so as to present a plurality of parallel beams corresponding to the beams from the samples; gathering the plurality of parallel beams using optical fibres, which map the beams onto an addressable charge coupled detector array; individually addressing different regions of the detector array onto which the beams impinge, to determine the light incident thereon; and storing data relating to the quantity of incident light on each said region of the detector array together with address information to enable the data to be reconciled with the position of the sample in the array to which that data relates, in which a shutter is provided to inhibit the transfer of light to the detector array, excitation radiation is supplied for an interval of time and then shut off, after a selected interval of time the shutter inhibiting transfer of light to the detector array is opened, and after an integration interval, the residual charge pattern on the detector array is interrogated to generate a signal relating to the charge pattern for processing and storage as aforesaid.