Instrumentation for Fluorescence Lifetime Measurement Using Photon Counting

Abstract

We describe the evolution of HORIBA Jobin Yvon IBH Ltd, and its time-correlated single-photon counting (TCSPC) products, from university research beginnings through to its present place as a market leader in fluorescence lifetime spectroscopy. The company philosophy is to ensure leadingedge research capabilities continue to be incorporated into instruments in order to meet the needs of the diverse range of customer applications, which span a multitude of scientific and engineering disciplines. We illustrate some of the range of activities of a scientific instrument company in meeting this goal and highlight by way of an exemplar the performance of the versatile DeltaFlex instrument in measuring fluorescence lifetimes. This includes resolving fluorescence lifetimes down to 5 ps, as frequently observed in energy transfer, nanoparticle metrology with sub-nanometre resolution and measuring a fluorescence lifetime in as little as 60 µs for the study of transient species and kinetics.

Fluorescence Guided Surgery

“…The key instrumentation components for employing fluorescence in surgical systems are largely based on proven technology and methodologies that are already in widespread use for fluorescence spectroscopy and microscopy [28,[98][99][100] and namely comprise of an excitation source, a fluorescent probe, excitation and emission filters and the fluorescence detector. Since the details on fluorescent probes have already been discussed in section 2, this section will focus on the requirements of excitation sources, filters and detectors as well as developments being made in these areas if applicable.…”

“…While time resolution is improved, drawbacks of implementing an MCP-PM include a degradation in gain over the lifetime of the MCP-PM, as well as being more expensive than traditional PMTs [114]. The more recent introduction of hybrid photomultipliers [115] that incorporate an avalanche photodiode rather than dynodes as the electron amplification mode offers lower after pulsing than both conventional PMTs and MCP-PMs as well as improved time and pulse-height resolution, and are already finding their way into commercial systems [100]. However, despite all these developments in technology the conventional photocathode-dynode photomultiplier rightly still finds a place in many new designs of spectroscopy and microscopy systems and still offers distinct capabilities for FGS and endoscopy.…”