Signal to Noise

Keith Bahjat (Kbahjat@nwu.edu)
Tue, 29 Oct 1996 10:41:33 -0600

Forgive my ignorance as I struggle through cytometry basics, but I was
wondering:

When considering only the filter sets that are shipped with an instrument,
when performing 4 color experiments on the Coulter XL and the BD
FACSCalibur, wouldn't a greater signal to noise ratio be achieved on the
FACSCalibur due to the increased "width" of the bandpass filters??

In other words: As Coulter has managed to achieve four color capabilities
from a single 488 nm laser, they have in turn used smaller bandwidths (?)
in the filters to the 4 PMTS, such that each filter only has about a 15 nm
range. Does this not decrease the signal to noise ratio obtainable with
this filter set for all fluorescent channels?

Would I be better off when performing 3 color experiments on my XL to use
different filters to maximize my signal to noise ratio?

Any help appreciated.

A curious guy,

Keith Bahjat
Kbahjat@nwu.edu


Home Page Table of Contents Sponsors Web Sites
CD ROM Vol 2 was produced by staff at the Purdue University Cytometry Laboratories and distributed free of charge as an educational service to the cytometry community. If you have any comments please direct them to Dr. J. Paul Robinson, Professor & Director, PUCL, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907. Phone:(317) 494-0757; FAX (317) 494-0517; Web http://www.cyto.purdue.edu EMAIL robinson@flowcyt.cyto.purdue.edu