Time-resolved spectroscopies TCSPC

Advanced TCSPC techniques have resulted in a number of spectacular applications in different fields of time-resolved spectroscopy. Nevertheless, a large number of potential applications clearly could benefit from TCSPC but do not use or do not fully exploit the capabilities of the currently available techniques and devices. This may be due in part to the continuing misperception that TCSPC is unable to reeord high photon rates, to achieve short acquisition times, or to reveal dynamie effeets in the fluorescence or scattering behaviour of the systems investigated. Another obstacle may be that TCSPC users often do not take the effort to understand the advanced features of the technique and consequently do not make the most effieient use of the devices they have. 

Conventional TCSPC equipment has been successfully employed in LSM for fluorescence spectroscopy on discrete microscopic volumes [18, 19] and for fluorescence lifetime imaging at a low acquisition speed [1], The use of conventional TCSPC equipment for imaging results in very long acquisition times, several to many minutes per (time-resolved) image. Importantly, operating the TCSPC detection system at too high detection rates, above 5% of the excitation frequency, results in distortion of the recorded decay curve [20],... 

Time-resolved PL measurements were also performed using time-correlated single-photon counting (TCSPC) and photoluminescence upconversion (PLUC) spectroscopies. Descriptions of the setups can be found in refs. [14, 65], respectively. All measurements were taken in continuous-flow He cryostats (Oxford Instruments OptistatCF) under inert conditions. Finally, PL efficiency measurements were performed on simple polymer thin films spin coated on Spectrosil substrates using an integrating sphere coupled to an Oriel InstaSpec IV spectrograph and excitation with the same Ar+ laser as above. 

Spectroscopy of single molecules is based on fluorescence correlation, photoncounting histograms, or burst-integrated-lifetime techniques. Each case requires recording not only the times of the photons in the laser period, but also their absolute time. Modem time-resolved single molecule techniques therefore use almost exclusively the FIFO (time-tag) mode of TCSPC. The FIFO mode records all information about each individual photon, i.e. the time in the laser pulse sequence (micro time), the time from the start of the experiment (macro time), and the number of the detector that detected the photon (see Sect. 3.6, page 43). 

Single-molecule techniques have found their initial applications in living cells. These experiments are related to time-resolved microscopy in that they use the same basic optical systems and TCSPC devices. A combination of singlemolecule spectroscopy and FLIM may expand the capabilities of biological microscopy considerably. 

An additional push can be expected from new technical developments in TCSPC itself. The largest potential is probably in the development of new detectors. The introduction of direct (wide-field) imaging techniques is clearly hampered by the limited availability of position-sensitive detectors. In addition the selection of multianode PMTs is still very limited, especially for NIR-sensitive versions. Large-area detectors with 64 or more channels may result in considerable improvements in DOT techniques. Single photon APDs with improved timing stability are urgently required for single-molecule spectroscopy and time-resolved microscopy. 

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