Makoto Miyamoto

High-intensity xenon pulse light source for fluorescence excitation

A newly developed 60W xenon flash lamp, L6604 and L6605, achieves the goals of longer operating life, higher output, and improved light stability. It operates at 2 Joules per flash input energy with approximately a 4 microsecond flash duration. The stability achieved is 2-3 percent peak-to-peak during a lifetime of 5 X 10e7 flashes, which is almost double that of conventional xenon flash lamps. This newly developed xenon flashlamp should serve as an excellent light source for analytical cytology and other fluorescence instruments. It can function as a high output, stable excitation light source for conventional fluorescence or delayed luminescence with a CCD. Besides providing powerful and stable illumination for absorption analysis of cells on slides, this lamp eliminates the optical artifacts associated with vibration of the stage which often limit throughput. This paper will describe in detail performance improvements obtained from this newly developed xenon flash lamp.