Short- and long-term memory effects in intensified array detectors: influence on airborne laser fluorosensor...

Phosphorescence and thermoluminescence memory effects in the phosphors of image intensifiers have been examined as they relate to the performance of intensified optical multichannel analyzers. Although most users of these devices may not need to be concerned with or aware of these secondary effects, their influence on an airborne laser fluorosensor application is shown to be significant. The magnitude of these strongly coupled effects, which are very sensitive to experimental conditions, has been modeled for a specific application, and algorithms are presented that can be used to remove these effects from airborne measurements of laser-induced fluorescence spectra of aquatic and terrestrial targets. It is a straightforward matter to adopt these procedures to other situations involving different gating routines, repetition rates, and diode group sizes.