Optical combiner for combining multiple laser beams in a flow cytometer

摘要

Disclosed is an optical combiner for combining multiple laser beams in a flow cytometer. A dichroic beam combiner is used to combine a second laser beam with a first laser beam so that the two beams are collinear. A beam size adjuster is utilized to adjust the size and convergence/divergence of the second laser beam so that both laser beams focus in a vertical direction at the same location on a stream in the flow cytometer. A cylindrical lens with a vertically oriented axis in the focusable beam shaping optics can also be adjusted to adjust the location of the focus point of the two beams in the horizontal direction. Alignment is maintained with the opto-mechanical adjustments made on one laser beam relative to the other laser beam path. Additional beams can also be added to the optical path.