INSTRUMENT FOR MEASURING LIFETIME OF FLUORESCENCE

摘要

Light from a pulse light source 11 is split by an optical splitter 12 into two light beams, and one is made to be incident via a gate optical system 2 on a detection medium 6 as a gate pulse used in observation of fluorescence. Moreover, the other is made to be incident via an excitation optical system 3 on a substance undergoing measurement 4 as an excitation pulse used in producing fluorescence, and the fluorescence from the substance undergoing measurement 4 is irradiated via a fluorescence optical system 5 onto the detection medium 6. Here, a fluorescence component that passes through a region of the detection medium 6 where a change in refractive index has been induced through a nonlinear optical effect produced in the detection medium 6 by the gate pulse is observed as a fluorescence image by utilizing a change in polarization state; by observing the change in position of the fluorescence image while correlating with the change over time in the fluorescence, a fluorescence lifetime measuring apparatus is realized with which the change over time in the fluorescence, inparticular the fluorescence lifetime, can be measured efficiently with high temporal resolution. <IMAGE>