Abstract: A reference system utilizes pulsed arc light excitation which excitation pulses are directed onto a flow cell containing a fluorescent dye. Fluorescent light emitted from the dye is guided to a photomultiplier tube which converts it to electrical pulses. A portion of each excitation light pulse is guided by a light pipe onto a PIN diode light detector which converts these light signals to electrical pulses. A LED reference light source is pulsed to generate a plurality of reference light pulses one of which occurs between each excitation pulse. A portion of each of these pulses is guided to each of the two light detectors and two more series of electrical pulses are generated. A microprocessor then reads the four electrical pulses resulting from each pair of light pulses and performs a computation on the resulting numbers which indicates the relative concentration of the target concentration being assayed.

Abstract: There is disclosed herein a reference system for a fluorometer designed to detect very low levels of materials tagged with fluorophores. There is also disclosed an optical system for use in such a system which improves the signal to noise ratio. The reference system utilizes pulsed arc light excitation which excitation pulses are directed onto a flow cell containing the fluorescent dye. Fluorescent light emitted from the dye is guided to a photomultiplier tube which converts it to electrical pulses. A portion of each excitation light pulse is guided by a light pipe onto a PIN diode light detector which converts these light signals to electrical pulses. A LED reference light source is pulsed to generate a plurality of reference light pulses one of which occurs between each excitation pulse. A portion of each of these pulses is guided to each of the two light detectors and two more series of electrical pulses are generated.

Abstract: An improved method for the fluorometric measurement of a fluorescent label on a solid support surface in which the surface is read while coated with a continuous aqueous layer. For reading in a horizontal position, the surface is coated by immersion into a contained aqueous solution, and removed and read prior to evaporation to discontinuity. For reading in a vertical position, a layer of humectant is deposited on the surface to retain the water content.