A quantitative luminescence imaging system for biochemical diagnostics
Abstract
A prototype quantitative low-light-level imaging system, capable of providing calibrated gray-scale imagery of radio-frequency (rf) stimulated chemiluminescence distributions in biological samples, has been developed by these authors. The quantitative luminescence imaging system (QLIS) represents a significant advance in the experimental instrumentation used for the study of such reactions, in that the system allows time-resolved and spatially resolved quantitative analyses to be performed. Measurements of chemiluminescence have traditionally been made by using individual photon counting photomultiplier tubes, integrating over the spatial volume and over time. The QLIS provides imagery at video rates, in which individual or integrated multiple frames can be calibrated to give a quantified image of the two-dimensional distribution of chemiluminescence in the sample. The system has a temporal resolution of 1/30th of a second, spatial resolution of 0.25 mm, a 40-mm-diam linear field of view, and a radiometric sensitivity range of 10-3-10-8 W/m2 sr. Radiometric calibration of the video imagery is accomplished with a self-luminous light source of known radiance and spectral content. The concept can be implemented for measurement at three scales: using a microscope for microscopic-scale measurements; using a wire mesh rf waveguide for medium-scale samples contained in a flat, cylindrical sample cell; or in an anechoic chamber for small- to human-body-sized samples. The prototype system has been implemented at the medium scale, with a wire mesh waveguide. Efforts are under way for development of the other two systems.
- Publication:
-
Review of Scientific Instruments
- Pub Date:
- September 1990
- DOI:
- 10.1063/1.1141353
- Bibcode:
- 1990RScI...61.2289B