Patent ID: 8150636

Claim:
A method for determining one or more characteristics of a fluorophore material, the method comprising the steps of: a) irradiating the fluorophore material with a pulse of excitation light from a single light source; b) providing a triggering signal correlated to the pulse of excitation light; c) detecting with a single photomultiplier tube (PMT), a plurality of photons emitted from the fluorophore material as result of the pulse of excitation light, the single PMT providing an output signal that represents the plurality of photons detected by the single PMT; d) determining for each detected photon a photon, in the plurality of photons detected by the single PMT, arrival time and providing an output suitable for inputting to an analysing module wherein an output comprises zero, one, or more photon arrival times for each excitation; e) repeating steps a) to d) until a predetermined number of excitations has been performed; f) receiving said outputs in an analysing module; g) determining, in the analysing module, characteristic properties of the fluorophore material by performing a probabilistic analysis based on Bayesian inference that does not provide spatial resolution; and wherein performing the probabilistic analysis based on Bayesian inference comprises taking into account a first time period (δ) describing a photomultiplier tube (PMT) dead time; a second time period (τ) describing blocking of the photodetector after an excitation; and a third time period (υ) describing the duration of recording after each excitation; and h) providing an output of the probabilistic analysis based on the Bayesian inference to a computer.