Specifications

32 Typical Applications
The scan clock pulses (pixel clock, line clock, frame clock) of the microscope are connected
into three LVTTL channel of TDC 1. Thus, TDC 1 records the times of the scan clocks,
TDC 2 the times of the photons and the times of the laser pulses. The FLIM image is recon-
structed from these data.
The system parameters for FLIM operation are shown in Fig. 48. The DPC works in the
‘TCSPC FIFO’ ‘FIFO Imaging’ mode. With the settings shown, a FLIM image with 256x256
pixels and 256 time channel per pixel is produced. Intermediate results are displayed in inter-
vals of ‘Display time’. The image data are calculated online, the time-tag data are not saved. If
you need the time-tag data, e.g. for image correlation within a recording over a large number
of frames, activate the ‘Save .spc file’ button. No stop condition is set; the measurement runs
until it is stopped by the operator. If you want the measurement to stop after a specified ‘Col-
lection Time’, activate the ‘Stop T’ button.
Fig. 48: System parameters for FLIM operation
The input configuration is shown in Fig. 49. TDC 1 works in the LVTTL mode. The inputs 3,
4, and 5 are defined as frame clock, line clock, and pixel clock inputs. TDC2 works in the
CFD input mode. CFD 3 receives the photon pulses, CFD 4 the laser reference pulses.
Fig. 49: Input configuration for FLIM operation
The details of the scan synchronisation are defined under ‘More Parameters’. In the simplest
case (i.e. for the bh DCS-120 scanner), the FLIM image is recorded at the same resolution the
microscope uses to scan the sample. The ‘More Parameters’ panel for this situation is shown
in Fig. 50, left. However, the DPC-230 can also apply line and pixel binning to the FLIM data.
Binning can be useful if a microscope scans at a pixel resolution higher than appropriate for