Luminescent Instrument / Luminometer

Luminescent instrument- also known as luminometer or photometer- is widely used in many biotechnology applications like ATP assay; luciferase assay; immunoassay and proteomics; nucleic acid, dna assay and genomics; clinical diagnostics; genomic analysis; toxicity test etc. Thus, the luminescent instrument is a significant biotechnology lab equipment. Before knowing more about luminescence equipment, one must know what is luminescence in essence.

Luminescence Definition

Luminescence is the light generally occurring at low temperatures. It is basically a form of cold body radiation caused by a variety of sources like chemical reactions, electrical energy, subatomic motions, or stress on a crystal. In short, luminescence means emission of light by a substance caused by physical or chemical means. The ways that cause luminescence can also be termed as the types of luminescence that include the following

• Photoluminescence - It is caused by a beam of photons (light).
• Cathodoluminescence - It is caused by an electron beam.
• Thermoluminescence - It is caused by application of heat, to temperatures below those that lead to incandescence.
• Chemiluminescence - It is basically chemical energy caused by a chemical reaction.
• Bioluminescence - It is a biochemical enzyme stimulated reaction with a light producing step.
• Triboluminescence - It is triggered by mechanical energy from a mechanical action like friction.

Luminescence Uses

In the last few years, the study and uses of bioluminescence as well as chemiluminescence have increased manyfolds. The applications of luminescence have extended from ATP-luciferase assay for cell viability tests to DNA, genomic, and proteomic analysis. In these studies, there is no need of an exogenous light source, luminescence is generated from chemical reactions only. Using photoncounting detector, counting the photons generated from the reaction, luminescence assay has become one of the most sensitive optical detection methods.

Luminescent Instrument- the Luminometer

A luminometer or a photometer is the instrument that measures light intensity or optical properties of solutions or surfaces. Apart from measuring luminescence, these photometers measure illuminance; irradiance; light absorption; scattering of light; reflection of light; fluorescence; and phosphorescence. Luminescence equipment are available as

• Tube Luminometers
• Microplate Luminometers
• Luminescence Imaging Instruments

The microplate luminometers are available with the luminometer suppliers for all common microplate formats, petri dishes and Teraski plates. They come with software that allows kinetics, scanning, repeated mode, dual ratio measurements etc. Tube luminometers are mostly used for all bioluminescent and chemiluminescent applications. The more advanced tube-based photon counting in some of the luminescence instruments provide an extended dynamic range with linearity over multiple orders of magnitude. They are ideal for reporter gene assays, ATP measurements, enzyme assays and other luminescence research and diagnostic applications. Luminescence imaging instruments can monitor gene expression in living organisms with ultra sensitive imaging systems.

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