A new design of the flow cuvette and optical set-up for the scanning flow cytometer

We introduce a new design for the optical cuvette and a nem optical lay-out for the Scanning Flow Cytometer (SFC) that permits measurement of the angular dependency of the scattered Light from individual moving particles, The improved optical scheme of the SFC allows measurement of the angular scattering pattern of individual particles at polar angles from 10 degrees to 120 degrees with integration at azimuthal angles from 0 degrees to 360 degrees and with angular resolution of better than 0.5 degrees. The performance of the SFC is demonstrated using certified polystyrene particles as reference material, The aim of this work is to develop a flow cytometer, which, by recording the entire light scattering pattern of individual biological particles, would provide more information about the particle structure than the ordinary wide angle, forward and side scattering concepts. (C) 1998 Wiley-Liss, Inc.