A fast fluorescence imaging flow cytometer for phytoplankton analysis

We report a fast fluorescence imaging flow cytometer for phytoplankton analysis that can achieve a volume flow rate up to 1ml/min. The instrument shows a high immunity to motion blur in image captured with a lateral resolution of 0.75 +/- 0.06 mu m for a wide size range similar to 1 mu m to similar to 200 mu m. This is made possible by suppressing the out-of-focus light using thin light sheet illumination and image deconvolution, and by precluding the motion-blur with a unique flow configuration. Preliminary results from untreated coastal water samples show the technique has high potential as a practical field instrument for monitoring phytoplankton abundance and species composition. (C)2013 Optical Society of America