Practice question

Flow cytometry signal processing follows sequence: cells generate light via scatter and fluorescence, photodetectors and photomultipliers collect photons and convert into analog voltage pulses proportional to intensity. Preamplifiers amplify these weak signals. Analog to digital converters digitize pulse height, area and width into numerical values stored for analysis. Amplification occurs before conversion to preserve dynamic range. Thus analog to digital conversion is third major step after light generation and analog amplification, enabling computerized gating, compensation and statistical analysis of thousands of events per second.