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This study investigates photomultiplier tube (PMT) nonlinearities, relevant for lifetime phosphor thermometry, at various decay times to assess and minimize the impact on temperature measurement accuracy. The focus is single-shot measurements performed in harsh environments where phosphor signal attenuation often is a concern. The sensitivity of decay time measurements to changing phosphorescence intensity is therefore investigated. The experimental results show that for the studied phosphors and detectors, shorter decay times between 20 ns and 6 µs, saturation effects in the PMTs decreased the measured decay time with increasing signal attenuation. For longer phosphorescence decay times, in the millisecond regime, nonlinearity effects led to an increase in the measured decay time with increasing signal attenuation. The specific detector nonlinearity response will vary among detectors, but the introduced methodology for detector analysis is a useful resource for assessing and improving accuracy in lifetime phosphor thermometry measurements.

Photomultiplier tube (PMT) nonlinearities relevant for single shot high-speed lifetime phosphor thermometry were investigated by simulating decay curves with a light emitting diode (LED) at repetition rates between 1 Hz and 10 kHz. The PMT gain, LED decay time, and background radiant flux were also varied to investigate their impact on the measured decay time error. Errors in the measured decay time due to nonlinear PMT performance lead to temperature measurement errors; therefore, having the measured decay time sensitive to only phosphor temperature is highly valuable for more reliable temperature measurements. Photocathode bleaching had a significant impact on the signal level linearity for PMTs with excitation frequency in the kHz regime but had a smaller impact on the decay time error. Space charge effects were most noticeable at high radiant flux levels and high repetition rates. Strong background radiant flux may lead to decay time errors, and a gateable photocathode could be an effective method to reduce decay time errors. The best decay time measurement configuration to maximize precision without sacrificing accuracy is to use PMT gain in the recommended range and the highest radiant flux where the PMT response is still linear. The degree of nonlinearity in the PMT response is partly detector dependent; therefore, the results in this work may differ among detectors; however, the analysis presented in this work provides guidelines for improving the temperature accuracy of kHz lifetime phosphor thermometry measurements.

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