PicoQuant has announced that the FluoTime 300 fluorescence lifetime spectrometer is now available with double monochromators in excitation and emission. Due to the high stray light rejection of these monochromators, the signal-to-noise ratio of the spectrometer is increased to more than 29,000 : 1 (RMS) using the standard water Raman test. Even samples with a very high scattering contribution can now be studied with high sensitivity and temporal resolution.
The excitation monochromator has an additional motorised filter wheel to suppress the second order that could lead to parasitic signals. The emission monochromator can be used in two modes: additive and subtractive. The additive mode is suited to applications that require high spectral resolution. Values as high as 0.15 nm can be reached and enable, e.g., measurements of complex molecular systems, organic semiconductor hybrids, up conversion materials. The subtractive mode improves the temporal resolution of the spectrometer and is, therefore, the mode of choice to study very short fluorescence lifetimes. An Instruments Response Function (IRF) of the system as short as 60 ps (FWHM) can be reached in combination with a picosecond pulsed diode laser and a PMA Hybrid detector, permitting fluorescence lifetimes below 10 ps to be resolved.
Both double monochromators are fully controlled from the EasyTau system software. Switching between additive and subtractive mode requires only a single mouse click.
