Abstract

The single photon correlation technique is now the most popular method of measuring fluorescence lifetimes.¹ Lifetime spectrometers traditionally use a single detection channel which necessitates consecutive measurement of the excitation pulse and fluorescence decay in separate experiments.² if the fluorescence decay is comparable to or less than the duration of the excitation pulse E(t) then the lifetime τ can be determined using reconvolution and a least-squares fit of F(t) to the decay using Equation (1) is widely used but its validity depends passively on the stability of the excitation pulse profile.

© 1984 Optical Society of America