title: Sensitivity improvement in fluorescence-based particle detection.
abstract: Microfluidic flow cytometers are highly interesting candidates for biomedical point-of-care applications. However, the sensitivity, reliability, and throughput of these systems must be improved to provide the full functionality of established flow cytometric systems. One proposed method to improve fluorescence detection systems is to use spatial modulation techniques. We derive the noise-related statistics and calculate the coefficient of variation for a detection system with and without spatial modulation. We measure the noise properties of a nonmodulated microfluidic fluorescence particle detection system and analyze the possible performance gains using spatial modulation.
authors.affiliation: Light Technology Institute and Institute of Microstructure Technology, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Karlsruhe, Germany.
authors.forename: Siegfried W
authors.initials: SW
authors.lastname: Kettlitz
authors.forename: Carola
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Moosmann
authors.forename: Sebastian
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Valouch
authors.forename: Uli
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Lemmer
mesh_terms: D005434:Flow Cytometry / Q000379:methods*; D005453:Fluorescence; D046210:Microfluidic Analytical Techniques / Q000379:methods*; D044085:Microfluidics / Q000379:methods*; D059629:Signal-To-Noise Ratio
keywords: flow cytometer; fluorescence; microfluidics; optical detection; optical modulation; optofluidics