Fluorescence spectroscopy photomultiplier tube

Photodiode Array Versus Photomultiplier Detection. The advantages of photodiode array detection, PDA, as compared to photomultiplier tube, pmt, detection for emission spectroscopy are well known (19). These advantages are especially important for the specific examples we discuss here, namely, upconverting emission spectroscopy. This is dramatically demonstrated in Figure 7 where we compare single channel pmt versus multichannel PDA detection of a small portion of the upconverted fluorescence spectrum of coumarin 520 in ethanol solvent at room temperature. 

Dark adapted samples (in a Hepes buffer, pH 7.2) were illuminated for 3 seconds by white light and the emission spectrum of delayed fluorescence was measured at room temperature, 1 second after the illumination (6) by using a recently developed high resolution spectroscopy system based on an imaging photomultiplier tube (PIAS, Hamamatsu Photonics, Japan) featuring 1 nm resolution in the spectral range of approximately 300 nm to 850 nm (5). 

Figure 1 (A) Afibre optic spectroscopy system with separate illumination and collection path is based on an excitation source, which is a laser or a white light source (reflectometry) or a monochromator filtered arc lamp (fluorescence). Optics couple the excitation light into the flexible probe. A probe collects the emitted light. Coupling optics adapt the numerical aperture of the probe to the spectrograph or filter system. An optical detector (charge coupled device (CCD), photodiode array, photomultiplier tube) is read out and digitized. (B) A fibre optic spectroscopy system with a probe that incorporates one optical fibre needs a dichroic beam splitter and well aligned optics to separate excitation and fluorescence light. Reproduced with permission of Optical Society of America Inc. from Greek LS, Schulze HG, Blades MW, Haynes CA, Klein K-F and Turner RFB (1998) Fiber-optic probes with improved excitation and collection efficiency for deep-UV Raman and resonance Raman spectroscopy. Applied Optics Z7 ).

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