A method of determining a property of a particle in a fluid sample and/or a method of determining a contamination property in a fluid sample

摘要

According to the present invention, there is provided a method for determining the properties of particles in a fluid sample and/or a method for determining the contamination properties of a fluid sample, the method comprising: (a) depositing a metallic film on a surface of a substrate on said substrate providing a smooth metallic surface; (b) contacting the fluid sample with the metallic surface of a substrate; (c) removing the fluid sample in contact with the metallic surface from the metallic surface so that only particles that were in the fluid sample remain on the metallic surface of the substrate; (d) depositing a layer of metal on the metallic surface and the particles remaining on the metallic surface of the substrate, each said particle being provided with a separate metallic layer, and regions of said metallic surface free of particles being provided with a metallic layer wherein for each particle there is a gap between the metallic layer on the particle and the metallic layer on the metallic surface; (e) illuminating the layer of metal on the particle and metallic surface with electromagnetic radiation, wherein the electromagnetic radiation is scattered by the layer of metal on the particle to produce individually scattered electromagnetic radiation; or illuminating the layer of metal on the particle and metallic surface with electromagnetic radiation, such that at least a portion of the electromagnetic radiation is absorbed by the layer of metal on the particle and another portion of the electromagnetic radiation strikes the metallic surface on the substrate. generating reflected electromagnetic rays by being reflected by the; (f) receiving electromagnetic radiation scattered from the array of photodiodes; or receiving reflected electromagnetic radiation from the array of photodiodes; (g) forming an image comprising pixels, wherein each pixel in the image corresponds to an individual photodiode in the array and the brightness of each pixel in the image is determined by the electromagnetic radiation received by the photodiode corresponding to the pixel. A step that corresponds to the intensity of; and (h) processing the formed image to determine a characteristic of the particle and/or processing the formed image to determine a contamination characteristic of the fluid sample.