Picosecond time delay fluorimetry using a jitter-free streak camera

A streak camera driven with picosecond accuracy by a laser-activated cryogenic Si-switch has been used to measure the decay time of malachite green in water by a pulse fluorimetry technique. The single shot timing accuracy of the streak camera (a few ps) corresponds to ～10% of the optical pulsewidth. The overall stability of the system allows the averaging of hundreds of laser shots without image translation improving both the signal to noise ratio and timing accuracy of the measurements.. The subpicosecond timing accuracy afforded by shot averaging has enabled us to measure a 2 ps fluorescence decay time for a low quantum yield sample with a 20 ps excitation pulse.