Using a photomultiplier tube to measure weak bioluminescence

Author

Heimer, M.L. ; Gutman, A. ; Del Boca, A.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. & Comput. Eng., Florida Int. Univ., Miami, FL, USA

fYear

1991

fDate

7-10 Apr 1991

Firstpage

494

Abstract

The design, development, and testing of a photon counting system for use in a luminometer instrument are described. The luminometer utilizes a microprocessor controller in the instrument as well as an AT class PC used as the operator interface. The problems encountered in field testing of the prototype unit led to changes which greatly improved the performance of the instrument. The major modification, adding an autocalibration procedure to set the operating conditions of each PMT (photomultiplier tube)-discriminator combination, has been implemented as a manual procedure and is presently being implemented as an automatic procedure. The performance of the instrument with the improvements shows a wide dynamic range, excellent linearity, and great stability in the test results

Keywords

biological techniques and instruments; chemiluminescence; computerised instrumentation; photomultipliers; AT class PC; autocalibration procedure; automatic procedure; biophysical research instrumentation; dynamic range; field testing; instrument performance; linearity; manual procedure; microprocessor controller; operating conditions; operator interface; photomultiplier tube; photon counting system; prototype unit; stability; weak bioluminescence measurement; Biochemistry; Bioluminescence; Chemicals; Electric variables measurement; Instruments; Microorganisms; Organisms; Photomultipliers; Prototypes; Testing;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Southeastcon '91., IEEE Proceedings of

Conference_Location

Williamsburg, VA

Print_ISBN

0-7803-0033-5

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/SECON.1991.147804

Filename

147804