Impact of Noise and Background on Measurement Uncertainties in Luminescence Thermometry

Thomas P. Van Swieten, Andries Meijerink, Freddy T. Rabouw*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

Materials with temperature-dependent luminescence can be used as local thermometers when incorporated in, for example, a biological environment or chemical reactor. Researchers have continuously developed new materials aiming for the highest sensitivity of luminescence to temperature. Although the comparison of luminescent materials based on their temperature sensitivity is convenient, this parameter gives an incomplete description of the potential performance of the materials in applications. Here, we demonstrate how the precision of a temperature measurement with luminescent nanocrystals depends not only on the temperature sensitivity of the nanocrystals but also on their luminescence strength compared to measurement noise and background signal. After first determining the noise characteristics of our instrumentation, we show how the uncertainty of a temperature measurement can be predicted quantitatively. Our predictions match the temperature uncertainties that we extract from repeated measurements, over a wide temperature range (303-473 K), for different CCD readout settings, and for different background levels. The work presented here is the first study that incorporates all of these practical issues to accurately calculate the uncertainty of luminescent nanothermometers. This method will be important for the optimization and development of luminescent nanothermometers.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1366-1374
Number of pages9
JournalACS Photonics
Volume9
Issue number4
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 11 Mar 2022

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
The Netherlands Center for Multiscale Catalytic Energy Conversion (MCEC), an NWO Gravitation Programme funded by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science of the Government of The Netherlands.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 American Chemical Society. All rights reserved.

Funding

The Netherlands Center for Multiscale Catalytic Energy Conversion (MCEC), an NWO Gravitation Programme funded by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science of the Government of The Netherlands.

Keywords

  • (EM)CCD
  • absorption cross section
  • background
  • luminescence thermometry
  • statistics
  • temperature uncertainty

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