Specifications

Importing FIFO Files 53
Importing FIFO Files
Measurements in the absolute time modes deliver an .spc file that contains time-tag data, i.e.
the micro time, the macro time, and the detector channel for each individual photon [2]. Dur-
ing a FIFO measurement normally decay curves, FCS curves, or photon counting histograms
are calculated on-line. These data are saved in normal .sdt files. However, it may happen that
not all of the desired functions were calculated during the measurement, or that the calculation
was not done with the optimal binning parameters or sampling time intervals. Moreover, on-
line data analysis may have not been used altogether to increase the data throughput rate. In
these cases, the ‘Convert FIFO File’ function allows you to read the data from the .spc file
created during the measurement and calculate the desired correlation functions or histograms.
The Convert FIFO panel is shown in Fig. 86.
Fig. 86: Conversion of FIFO data into .sdt data
Each measurement creates a setup (.set) file which has the same name as the .spc file (or the
last .spc file if several are recorded sequentially). The name of this setup file must be specified
under ‘Setup File name’. As in the load and save panels, the file is specified in file name field.
Clicking on the disc symbol opens a dialog box that displays the available files. A history of
previously used setup files is available by clicking on the button. The ‘File Info’ displays
information about the corresponding measurement.
The FIFO (.spc) file is specified under ‘Source File Name’. A FIFO measurement may pro-
duce several .spc files. The data of all these files are combined by activating the ‘Use Stream
of Files’ button. ‘Overall Measurement Time’ informs about the total time over which the
measurement has been run.
The lower part specifies the .sdt file to be created. The file name is specified under ‘Destina-
tion file name’. The conversion routine suggests a file with the same name as the .spc file.