What are the characteristics of the fluidics component of the flow cytometer?

The fluidics are needed to direct the liquid containg the cells to the light source. it consists of the sheath fluid, which flows next to the sample fluid and makes sure that the sample cells flow in a single stream (because the sample pressure is bigger than the sheath fluid pressure). when the flow rate is high, the analysis is done faster, but this risks that the cells clump together and that you do not measure one cell at a time. high flow rates are used for qualitative measurements such as immunophenotyping. low flow rates are used for applications that need higher resolutions ( e.g. DNA content analysis).