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Abstract

An apparatus and method to provide rapid and sensitive quantitative analysis of mixtures by obtaining combined fluorescence wavelength and fluorescence lifetime information, the apparatus having a pulsed light source that induces fluorescence in the sample, the pulses being of a repetitive nature, of short duration, and with very high stability in the pulse energy; a fluorescence wavelength-selector to control the wavelengths of fluorescence photons presented to a photodetector; a digitizer to process the time-dependent electrical signal from the photodetector; and, a memory device that can accept and store a large number of complete fluorescence decay curves from the digitizer each second. The method consists of gathering a wavelength-time matrix, which consists of the digitized fluorescence decay curves for at least two different emission wavelengths or for at least two different excitation wavelengths; and applying a quantitative analysis algorithm that determines a numerical value for the contribution of at least one fluorescent component to the data contained within the wavelength-time matrix.

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