PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a single photon sensor system and method for analysis of biological samples labeled with multiple fluorescent markers.SOLUTION: Polychromatic light emitted by mixtures of minute amounts of multiple fluorescence dyes is subjected to spectral separation 12 through an input fiber 11. A sensor 10 comprises a 32-channel PMT sensor 13 having single photon sensitivity for measuring radiation, and can detect a single photon highly sensitively with a broad detection dynamic range. A 32-channel PMT single photon detector has a detection dynamic range of 20 bits or greater and has a frame rate of about 3300 frames per second. The dynamic range of the detector's pixels reaches 10photocounts per second. A spectrometer having such a configuration enables accurate high-speed detection, identification and analysis of biological samples labeled with multiple fluorescent markers.
SINGLE PHOTON SPECTROMETER