Simulations of measurements of fluorescence lifetimes using noise-modulated light

Abstract

At the Pattern Recognition group at the Delft University of Technology, we are working on new ways to measure fluorescence lifetimes. There are two well-known ways to measure lifetimes; the phase method and the pulse method. In the phase method fluorescent material is stimulated by sinusoidally modulated light. The emitted fluorescent light will have the same modulation frequency, but there will be a phase shift between the excitation and the emission light. Measuring this phase shift will, after some simple calculation, give the lifetime of the fluorescent material. The second method is the pulse method. Short pulses of light are used to excite the material. The emitted light is detected, and from these measurements the decay curve of fluorescent light is determined. In our research we want to use a new method that may allow us to measure a mixture of lifetimes. We want to use excitation light that is modulated by a white noise signal. We are currently building an experimental setup for these measurements. We have been working on numerical and electrical simulations to investigate the properties of noise signals. Some results of these simulations are presented in this paper.