MULTIDIMENSIONAL FLUORESCENCE SPECTROSCOPY USING A STREAK CAMERA BASED PULSE FLUOROMETER

Modern streak camera based pulse fluorometers readily allow data colle ction in two-dimensions, We have developed a modular instrument that i s easily adapted for recording time-resolved emission spectra, fluores cence depolarization data, and time series of time-resolved fluorescen ce decays. The instrument is based on a synchroscan streak camera and a passively mode-locked Ti:Sapphire laser using second harmonic genera tion and third harmonic generation to extend the excitation wavelength range to the visible and ultraviolet. The performance of the instrume nt was tested using standard biological samples, The dynamic ran,re is typically 600:1, and the detection Limit is less than 1 fW. With resp ect to the fluorescence decay kinetic (first time axis), the temporal resolution is better than 10 ps, and rotational correlation times of 5 0 ps are measured routinely, For the second time axis, the maximum tim e resolution is approximately 2 ms. (C) 1998 American Institute of Phy sics.