The Dianthus instruments perform well scans in three dimensions before each well is measured for Spectral Shift alone or Spectral Shift and TRIC response. That process is complete within less than one second.

The aim is to position the optical systems precisely in the center of the well. For Spectral Shift, the focus is on the center of the well in all directions, but for TRIC, the focus is on the center close to the bottom of the well. The X- and Y-Scans are obtained by moving the plate over the optics. The optical system records the fluorescence in the well. Therefore, aggregates and air bubbles at the bottom can impact the shape of the well scan. Usually, this is recognized and flagged as a negative Well-Scan Quality. For exact positioning in Z, the optics move upwards, while a focused visible light laser is reflected from the plate surface. A peak in reflected light intensity is observed as soon as the optical focus passes the interface between air and foil bottom. A second, smaller peak indicates the interface between the foil and aqueous sample. Empty wells and wells with large air bubbles are easily observed by a second high peak in the Z-scan.

Dianthus introduces a new machine learning-based approach for well scanning analysis, which detects wells that contain aggregation, bubbles, or other artifacts that may affect the reported ratio value.  Each well is assigned a quality score during the scan.