Time-Resolved Luminescence Sensing

Chapter 10 of this volume, entitled Lifetime-Based Sensing, by Henryk Szmacinski and Joseph R. Lakowicz is an excellent complement to the material presented in this section. 

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Lakowicz et al. [96] have studied luminescence spectral properties of CdS nanoparticles. They examined the steady state and time resolved luminescence spectral properties of two types of CdS nanoparticles. These results suggest that nanoparticles can provide a new class of luminophores for use in chemical sensing, DNA sequencing, high throughput screening and other biotechnology applications. 

The Applications of Laser-induced Time-resolved Spectroscopic Techniques chapter starts with a short description of laser-induced spectroscopies, which may be used in combination with laser-induced luminescence, namely Breakdown, Raman and Second Harmonic Generation. The chapter contains several examples of the application of laser-based spectroscopies in remote sensing and radiometric sorting of minerals. The proljlem of minerals as geomaterials for radioactive waste storage is also considered. 

Most of the time-resolved emission spectroscopy setups are home made in the sense that they are built from individual devices (laser, detection system,. ..) hence they are not of a plug and press type, so that their exact characteristics may vary from one installation to the other. Some of these differences have no impact on the overall capabilities of the system but some have a drastic influence on the way the collected data are processed and analysed. This aspect will be detailed in the next section, while this section deals with a general description of the apparatus. The most basic type of apparatus will be described, with no reference to sophisticated techniques such as Time Correlated Single Photon Counting or Circularly Polarized Luminescence devices. 

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