Apparatus and method for scanning a chemical array

Claim 1

A method for analyzing a chemical array having a plurality of array elements some of which are suspected to contain fluorescent material, comprising: (a) selecting a first number of pixels and irradiating the first number of pixels sequentially in the array elements and detecting the fluorescence resulting from the irradiation in the pixels, the first number of pixels being more than one pixel and less than the total number of pixels in the array and being selected such that a period elapses adequate for the fluorescent material in a pixel to recover from a metastable state before the pixel is irradiated again; and (b) repeating the irradiation and detecting on the first number of pixels one or more times before irradiating pixels of a second number of pixels that are different from the pixels of the first number of pixels in the array.

Claim 2

A method for analyzing a chemical array having a plurality of array elements some of which are suspected to contain fluorescent material, comprising: (a) selecting a first number of pixels and irradiating the first number of pixels sequentially in the array elements and detecting the fluorescence resulting from the irradiation in the pixels, the first number of pixels being more than one pixel and less than the total number of pixels in the array and being selected such that a period elapses adequate for the fluorescent material in a pixel to recover from a metastable state before the pixel is irradiated again; and (b) repeating the irradiation and detecting on the first number of pixels one or more times before irradiating pixels of a second number of pixels that are different from the pixels of the first number of pixels in the array.

Claim 9

A method for analyzing a chemical array having a plurality of array elements by scanning the elements in lines of pixels some of which is suspected to contain fluorescent material, comprising: (a) irradiating a line of pixels with a laser beam sequentially in the array and detecting the fluorescence resulting from the irradiation in the pixels, the line of pixels having more than 100 pixels and less than the total number of pixels in the array, the number of pixels in a line being sufficiently large such that a period would elapse adequate for the fluorescent material in the pixel first irradiated to recover from a metastable state before the whole line has been irradiated; (b) repeating the irradiation and detecting on the first line of pixels one or more times before irradiating pixels of a second line of pixels, such that 10 -5 second to 10 -1 second has elapsed before a pixel is re-irradiated; and (c) doing steps (a) and (b) for all of the array elements until all the array elements have been irradiated without re-irradiating any line of pixels after another line has been irradiated subsequent to the irradiation of that any line without irradiating a different line of pixels between the initial irradiation and a repeated irradiation of a line for substantially all the lines.

Claim 10

A method for analyzing a chemical array having a plurality of array elements by scanning the elements in lines of pixels some of which is suspected to contain fluorescent material, comprising: (a) irradiating a line of pixels with a laser beam sequentially in the array and detecting the fluorescence resulting from the irradiation in the pixels, the line of pixels having more than 100 pixels and less than the total number of pixels in the array, the number of pixels in a line being sufficiently large such that a period would elapse adequate for the fluorescent material in the pixel first irradiated to recover from a metastable state before the whole line has been irradiated; (b) repeating the irradiation and detecting on the first line of pixels one or more times before irradiating pixels of a second line of pixels, such that 10 -5 second to 10 -1 second has elapsed before a pixel is re-irradiated; and (c) doing steps (a) and (b) for all of the array elements until all the array elements have been irradiated without re-irradiating any line of pixels after another line has been irradiated subsequent to the irradiation of that any line without irradiating a different line of pixels between the initial irradiation and a repeated irradiation of a line for substantially all the lines.