Patent ID: 7635588

Claim:
An apparatus comprising: a thermal cycler; a plurality of reaction regions, each comprising a respective sample disposed therein, the plurality of reaction regions being connected to the thermal cycler, the thermal cycler being adapted to carry out thermal cycling to effect a polymerase chain reaction on the respective samples in the plurality of reaction regions; a plurality of detectors disposed above the samples and capable of detecting emission beams emitted from the plurality of reaction regions, the plurality of detectors including a different detector centered above each one of the reaction regions; for each detector, four or more excitation light sources capable of providing a plurality of separate excitation beams, each excitation beam comprising a wavelength range that is not provided by the other excitation beams of the plurality of separate excitation beams, each excitation light source being capable of directing a respective excitation beam along a beam path toward the respective reaction region, the four or more excitation light sources for each detector surrounding the respective detector and being spaced above the respective sample disposed in the reaction region; a control unit capable of activating each of the four or more excitation light sources for each detector independently from the other excitation light sources of the respective four or more excitation light sources; and a detection system configured to control the plurality of detectors to simultaneously detect emission beams from each of the plurality of reaction regions and to associate the emission beams detected from each of the plurality of reaction regions with the excitation light source activated by the control unit.