Bleaching of dyes in luminescent detection

A sensor device for determining presence of luminescent targets, wherein the sensor device comprises:

• a light source for exciting the luminescent targets, thus generating luminescence signals;
• a detector for detecting luminescence signals of the luminescent targets, resulting in a detected signal which comprises a desired signal originating from the luminescent targets and a background signal;
• a bleaching device for bleaching at least part of sources generating the background signal;
• and
• a processor having stored thereon program instructions that, upon execution by the processor, cause performance of a set of acts comprising:
• triggering the bleaching device to start bleaching and stop bleaching;
• triggering the light source, after bleaching, for exciting remaining luminescent targets, wherein the remaining luminescent targets are those luminescent targets that are not bleached;
• and
• triggering the detector for detecting the luminescence signal of the remaining luminescent targets, so as to generate a measurement signal representative for quantification of the luminescent targets.