THE 2ND-ORDER FACTORIAL MOMENT OF THE TIME-INTERVAL DISTRIBUTION AND ITS APPLICATION TO LIFETIME DETERMINATION

A Poisson point-process (P.PP) presents a series of characteristics wh ich may be used to define functions with an optimal signal to noise ra tio. This paper describes the second-order factorial moment of the int erval probability distribution, obtained by measuring time-intervals i n a P.PP. The advantage of this function is that it can be applied to cases of low light level, in which it is necessary to increase the sig nal-to-noise ratio. As a particular case of low light level signals, w e have applied this method to a real single-photon-decay spectroscopy experiment and measured the life-time of the 4T1 state of Mn2+ in an u ndoped TMMC crystal at room temperature.