A Behavioral Model for Transcutaneous Carbon Dioxide Measurement Using Time-Correlated Single Photon Counting...

Millimeter-size carbon dioxide (CO₂)-sensitive luminescence films emerge as practical sensors in miniaturized biomedical devices for measuring transcutaneous CO₂. The intensity and lifetime of the excited luminophores in the film carry critical information about the CO₂ values in the surrounding environment. It has been proven that lifetime-based measurement is superior to intensity-based measurement because of its robustness to confounding factors. Addressing the challenge of accurately determining the rapid nanosecond-scale lifetime of CO₂-sensitive luminophores, we introduce a behavioral model using a time-correlated single photon counting system equipped with silicon photomultipliers. We included nonidealities such as dark count rate, afterpulsing, and crosstalk to this model. To recover the lifetime from photon counts, we applied denoising and fitting techniques. With hyperparameter optimization to determine various post-processing parameters, we improved accuracy in recovery for lifetime values ranging from 3 ns to 7 ns. Our results demonstrate the applicability of the proposed model and techniques in real-world scenarios.