Prothrombin Time (PT) is used as a measure of blood coagulation time. An optical analysis of the signal generating mechanism is described here for the reflection-type arrangement. Thromboplastin added into serum or whole blood initiates the coagulation process. We added a sufficient amount of magnetic particles into the sample before adding thromboplastin and subjected the mixture to a rotating magnetic field. The laser light gets reflected in a periodically modulated fashion with respect to the magnetic field rotation. Analysis of this decaying modulation could produce a reasonable coagulation time. We also introduce a simulation model to explain the signal generating mechanism using LightTools.

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