Model-free deconvolution of femtosecond kinetic data

Though shorter laser pulses can also be produced, pulses of the 100 fs range are typically used in femtosecond kinetic measurements, which are comparable to characteristic times of the studied processes, making detection of the kinetic response functions inevitably distorted by convolution with the pulses applied. A description of this convolution in terms of experiments and measurable signals is given, followed by a detailed discussion of a large number of available methods to solve the convolution equation to get the undistorted kinetic signal, without any presupposed kinetic or photophysical model of the underlying processes. A thorough numerical test of several deconvolution methods is described, and two iterative time-domain methods (Bayesian and Jansson deconvolution) along with two inverse filtering frequency-domain methods (adaptive Wiener filtering and regularization) are suggested to use for the deconvolution of experimental femtosecond kinetic data sets. Adaptation of these methods to typical kinetic curve shapes is described in detail. We find that the model-free deconvolution gives satisfactory results compared to the classical "reconvolution" method where the knowledge of the kinetic and photophysical mechanism is necessary to perform the deconvolution. In addition, a model-free deconvolution followed by a statistical inference of the parameters of a model function gives less biased results for the relevant parameters of the model than simple reconvolution. We have also analyzed real-life experimental data and found that the model-free deconvolution methods can be successfully used to get undistorted kinetic curves in that case as well. A graphical computer program to perform deconvolution via inverse filtering and additional noise filters is also provided as Supporting Information. Though deconvolution methods described here were optimized for femtosecond kinetic measurements, they can be used for any kind of convolved data where measured experimental shapes are similar.