NEW PUBLICATION: Time-resolved confocal microscopy

Time-resolved confocal microscopy using lanthanide centred near-IR emission. Z Liao, M Tropiano, S Faulkner, T Vosch and TJ Sørensen. 
RSC Advances, 2015, 5, 70282-70286 DOI: 10.1039/C5RA15759E

Abstract: A method to uniquely identify signals originating from probes with different emission decay times in luminescence imaging has been developed. By using scanning confocal microscopy in combination with time-correlated single photon counting (TCSPC), Photon Arrival Time Imaging (PArTI) has been realised through off-line plotting of images using the photon arrival times. PArTI is the time-equivalent to spectrally resolved imaging, replacing the energy axis with a photon arrival time axis. Here, lanthanide probes were used to demonstrate the key advantages of themethod. PArTI uses TCSPC data, involves no fitting, uses a single pulsed laser line for multicolour imaging, and can be used with a 100 millisecond dwell time per pixel.

Graphical overview of the Photon Arrival Time Imaging (PArTI) method. Intensity image, time-gated and photon arrival time resolved image showing four areas: probe I (blue), probe II (red), probe III (green); the yellow area is stained with equal amounts of probe II and III