Noise effect on 2D photoluminescence decay analysis using the RATS method in single-pixel camera configuration

TL;DR

This paper analyzes how noise impacts the accuracy of the RATS method for measuring 2D photoluminescence decay using a single-pixel camera, providing strategies for noise mitigation and method optimization.

Contribution

It offers a detailed noise analysis for the RATS method in 2D PL decay imaging and suggests optimal acquisition and regularization strategies for improved accuracy.

Findings

Noise level critically affects RATS accuracy.

Increasing acquisition time improves results, while more measurements have limited benefit.

Optimal regularization parameter depends on dataset noise.

Abstract

Using a random temporal signal for sample excitation (RATS method) is a new, efficient approach to measuring photoluminescence (PL) dynamics. The method can be used in single-point measurement (0D), but also it can be converted to PL decay imaging (2D) using a single-pixel camera configuration. In both cases, the reconstruction of the PL decay and PL snapshot is affected by ubiquitous noise. This article provides a detailed analysis of the noise effect on the RATS method and possible strategies for its elimination. We carried out an extensive set of simulations focusing on the effect of noise introduced through the random excitation signal and the corresponding PL waveform. We show that the PL signal noise level is critical for the method. Furthermore, we analyze the role of acquisition time, where we demonstrate the need for a non-periodic excitation signal. We show that it is beneficial to increase the acquisition time while increasing the number of measurements in the single-pixel camera configuration has a minimal effect above a certain threshold. Finally, we study the effect of a regularization parameter used in the deconvolution step, and we observe that there is an optimum value set by the noise present in the PL dataset. Our results provide a guideline for optimization of the RATS measurement, but also study effects generally occurring in PL decay measurements methods relying on the deconvolution step.