Time-Resolved Spectroscopy System and Methods for Multiple-Species Analysis in Fluorescence and Cavity-Ringdown Applications

A method of using a time-resolved spectroscopy system to detect one or more compounds in a sample comprising:

• producing light to be directed at a sample, said sample comprising at least one light emitting or light absorbing compound;
• providing a plurality of optical channels;
• distributing to each of said plurality of optical channels radiation scattered or transmitted by the sample as a result of said light impinging on said sample;
• detecting the radiation carried by each of said optical channels;
• and further
• wherein different concentrations of light emitting or light absorbing compounds in a given sample are expressed by a vector, χ, and said vector can be found using the equation:
• χ=Z−1·σt·A;
• wherein
• vector A corresponds to the measurements obtained with the time-resolved spectroscopy system, and Z−1 is a symmetric matrix.

A method of using a time-resolved spectroscopy system to detect one or more compounds in a sample, said method comprising:

• producing light to be directed at a sample, said sample comprising at least one light emitting or light absorbing compound;
• providing a plurality of optical channels;
• distributing to each of said plurality of optical channels radiation scattered or transmitted by the sample as a result of said light impinging on said sample;
• detecting the radiation carried by each of said optical channels;
• and further wherein
• the lifetime and concentration of multiple light emitting or light absorbing components of a sample are obtained essentially simultaneously by finding singular points of the variance of a function of two independent parameters.

A method of using a time-resolved spectroscopy system for use in cavity ring-down spectroscopy to detect one or more components in a sample, said method comprising:

• producing light to be directed at a sample contained in a cavity ring-down system, said sample comprising at least one absorbing component;
• providing a plurality of optical channels;
• distributing to each of said plurality of optical channels radiation transmitted through the sample using a time-division multiplexing device;
• detecting the radiation carried by each of said optical channels;
• and further
• wherein
• the signal lifetime is used to obtain the concentration of multiple absorbing components of a sample are obtained essentially simultaneously by finding singular points of the variance of a function of two independent parameters.