title: Analysis of Light Gathering Abilities of Dynamically Solidified Micro-lenses, and Their Implementation to Improve Sensitivity of Fluorescent PCR Micro-detectors.
abstract: Fluorescent polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is becoming the preferred method of quantitative analysis due to its high specificity and sensitivity. We propose to use a new kind of micro-lens, dynamically solidified with optic glue, to improve the sensitivity of fluorescent PCR micro-detector. We developed light ray track equations for these lenses and used them to calculate relative light intensity distribution curve for stimulation lenses and illumination point probability distribution curve for detection lenses. We manufactured dynamically solidified micro-lenses using optic glue NOA61, and measured their light gathering ability. Lenses with radius/thickness (R/H) ratio of 4 reached light focusing ratio of 3.85 (stimulation lens) and photon collection efficiency of 0.86 (detection lens). We then used dynamically solidified lenses in PCR fluorescence micro-detector and analyzed their effect on the detector sensitivity. We showed that the use of dynamically solidified micro-lenses with R/H = 4 resulted in over 4.4-fold increased sensitivity of the detector.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Laser Engineering, Beijing University of Technology, Beijing, 100124, China. drjianwu@163.com.
authors.forename: Jian
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.affiliation: Institute of Laser Engineering, Beijing University of Technology, Beijing, 100124, China.
authors.forename: Wei
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Guo
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Space Medicine Fundamentals and Application, Chinese Astronaut Science Researching and Training Center, Beijing, 100094, China.
authors.forename: Chunyan
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: College of Applied Sciences, Beijing University of Technology, Beijing, 100124, China.
authors.forename: Kuanxin
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Yu
authors.affiliation: Institute of Laser Engineering, Beijing University of Technology, Beijing, 100124, China.
authors.forename: Tao
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Space Medicine Fundamentals and Application, Chinese Astronaut Science Researching and Training Center, Beijing, 100094, China.
authors.forename: Yinghui
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Li
mesh_terms: D005453:Fluorescence; D055096:Optical Devices; D055620:Optical Phenomena; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity
keywords: Light gathering ability; Light ray track equations; Micro-lens solidified dynamically; PCR fluorescence micro-detector