AN EXPERIMENTAL-DESIGN FOR MICROLUMINESCENCE

The description of a new experimental design for microluminescence is presented in this article. The design is based on the optical analysis of a magnified luminescent region and has been proven to be useful fo r studying the photon transport mechanism ina solid luminescent materi al. Lock-in detection and a liquid-nitrogen-cooled detector are used t o obtain signal-to-noise ratio as good as 10(2). The performance of th e system is discussed by using the measurements taken from a natural r uby crystal. Using transport theory to fit our data, we found the phot on diffusion length in the ruby crystal to be on the order of 46 mu m. (C) 1997 American Institute of Physics.