Intensified gated camera for fluorescence lifetime imaging

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Fluorescence microscopy is a multi-purpose, interdisciplinary research tool in condensed matter physics, optical engineering, inorganic and molecular chemistry, the life sciences, and medical imaging. The key components of a versatile, integrated, and interdisciplinary fluorescence microscopy system include a high-quality optical microscope, laser excitation sources, color fluorescence cameras, and spectroscopic measurement systems. In the five years since the fluorescence Microscopy has been operational, it has been used almost continuously, with approximately 30 students and PDFs having been trained in the techniques of fluorescence detection, imaging, and analysis, without requiring specialized technical support staff. Students have built removable stages for LED device testing, optical fiber-tapering, microcavity fluorescence sensors, microfluidics, and evanescent coupling setups; despite this complexity, they can be removed and replaced within minutes. However, after several years of operation, we are now faced with projects that specifically require fluorescence lifetime imaging. Unfortunately, the FML does not have any dynamical spectroscopy or imaging capabilities. The ability to perform lifetime imaging, gated at a few nanoseconds, will opening the door to so much exciting new science and is answering questions that we could only dream of asking as recently as 5 years ago, in areas ranging from silicon-based LEDs and light sources, visualization of the movement of electric charges in organic materials and semiconductor devices, and microcavity fluorescence and cavity ring-down imaging (a technique that is directly related to chemical and biological sensing technologies).