Patent Document ID: 20050126505
Application ID: 11009693
Patent Status: 0

Claim One:
1. A flow-through imaging system for capturing images of high order refractive indices samples suspended in a liquid stream comprising: a flow-through sample processor comprised of a filtered liquid reservoir; a sample container comprising a sample inlet port for introducing said samples; a top inlet port for combining said samples with a filtered liquid received from said reservoir; a bottom inlet port for introducing a pressurized gas and a bottom outlet port for transporting a liquid stream of suspended samples to a first flow cell inlet port; a sample flow cell for presenting a suspended liquid stream of said samples to a camera focal plane, said flow cell comprising an imaging window for filming said samples in said liquid stream; said first flow cell inlet port for receiving said suspended sample stream; a second flow cell inlet port for introducing a sheath stream of filtered liquid from said reservoir, said sheath stream flowing around said sample stream and orienting said samples in said imaging window for filming; a flow cell outlet port for transporting said filmed samples to a sample collector; a sample illumination module on a proximal side of said flow cell comprised of a brightfield illuminator comprising a xenon strobe light; a first linear polarizer for filtering said strobe light; and a condenser lens for producing polarized Koehler illumination for illuminating said samples; a light receiving module on a distal side of said flow cell comprised of an objective lens for collecting and magnifying light transmitted through said birefringent samples; a full wave compensation or retardation plate for accentuating a speed difference between a plurality of slow and fast transmitted light rays, said compensation plate accentuating an interference color brightness of said transmitted light; a linear polarizer analyzer rotated 90 degrees to said first linear polarizer, said analyzer excluding the vector sum of said slow and fast transmitted light rays; a quarter wave retardation or compensation plate for circularly polarizing said transmitted light; where said transmitted sample light passes from said objective lens through said full wave compensation plate, through said analyzer and then through said quarter wave retardation plate; an ocular for receiving said transmitted sample light from said quarter wave compensation plate, producing a virtual image of said sample transmitted light and projecting said image onto a faceplate of a CCD camera chip; and a digital CCD camera for filming a plurality of interference colors produced by said sample transmitted light;