Flow cytometry with anti-diffraction light sheet (ADLS) by spatial light modulationFlow cytometry is a widespread and powerful technique, whose resolution is
determined by its capacity to accurately distinguish fluorescently positive
populations from negative ones. However, most informative results are discarded
while performing the measurements of conventional flow cytometry, e.g., the
cell size, shape, morphology, and distribution or location of labeled exosomes
within the unpurified biological samples. We, herein, propose a novel approach
using an anti-diffraction light sheet with anisotroic feature to excite
fluorescent tags. Constituted by an anti-diffraction Bessel-Gaussian beam
array, the light sheet is 12 $μ$m wide, 12 $μ$m high, with a thickness of
$~ 0.8 μ$m. The intensity profile of the excited fluorescent signal can,
therefore, reflect the size and allow samples in the range from O(100 nm) to 10
$μ$m (e.g., blood cells) to be transported via hydrodynamic focusing in a
microfluidic chip. The sampling rate is 500 kHz provides a capability of high
throughput without sacrificing the spatial resolution. Consequently, the
proposed anti-diffraction light-sheet flow cytometry (ADLSFC) can obtain more
informative results than the conventional methodologies, and is able to provide
multiple characteristics (e.g., the size and distribution of fluorescent
signal) helping to distinguish the target samples from the complex backgrounds.
arxiv.org