Optical microscopy is one of the most widely used diagnostic methods in scientific, industrial, and biomedical applications. However, while useful for detailed examination of a small number (< 10,000) of microscopic entities, conventional optical microscopy is incapable of statistically relevant screening of large populations (> 100,000,000) with high precision due to its low throughput and limited digital memory size. We present an automated flow-through single-particle optical microscope that overcomes this limitation by performing sensitive blur-free image acquisition and nonstop real-time image-recording and classification of microparticles during high-speed flow. This is made possible by integrating ultrafast optical imaging technology, self-focusing microfluidic technology, optoelectronic communication technology, and information technology. To show the system’s utility, we demonstrate high-throughput image-based screening of budding yeast and rare breast cancer cells in blood with an unprecedented throughput of 100,000 particles/s and a record false positive rate of one in a million.

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With the help of an implicit particle-in-cell code, we have shown in a previous paper that the electron-cyclotron drift instability was able to induce anomalous conductivity as well as anomalous heating. As such it can be a major actor among the mechanisms involved in the operation of Hall thrusters. However, experimental results show that the nature of wall material has a significant effect on the behavior of the thruster. The purpose of this paper is to study the plasma-wall interaction in the case where the plasma is heated self-consistently by electrostatic fluctuations induced by the electron-cyclotron drift instability. V C 2013 AIP Publishing LLC.