Practical Time-Resolved Fluorescence Spectroscopy: Avoiding Artifacts and Using Lifetime Standards

Abstract

In this chapter we describe how artifacts can be avoided in the two most commonly used time-resolved fluorometries, namely the single-photon timing and the multifrequency phase-modulation techniques. The most frequently encountered artifacts (inner filter effect, autofluorescence, polarization effects, color effect, photobleaching, deoxygenation, pulse pile-up, and linearity of the time response in the time-to-amplitude converter) are described in detail and remedies are presented to avoid these pitfalls. An extensive list of fluorescence lifetime standards is presented, which allows the spectroscopist to calibrate and test time-resolved instruments for systematic errors.