Product Code: JLA_3_2_27

Authors:
L. Jonathan Dowell
Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM 87545

The author examined the precision of maximum‐likelihood‐derived, nonlinear least‐squared‐error algorithms that are suitable for laboratory implementation and that estimate the parameters of Fo¨rster models of fluorescence. The estimation precision for these parameters is limited by inherent noise in the fluorescence‐waveform measurement. This paper examines the Fo¨rster model and its recent applications and discusses parameter estimations for models of energy transfer by different wavefunction interactions. It presents the results of Monte Carlo simulation studies of noise‐limited parameter‐estimation precision and presents waveform‐measurement strategies, based on optimal observation times and sequential parameter estimation, that can reduce parameter‐estimation error. This investigation is part of ongoing research in thermal metrology using the temperature‐dependent laser‐induced‐fluorescence lifetime of rare‐earth‐doped ceramic phosphors. This work combines parameter‐estimation concepts from electrical engineering with waveform‐description theories from solid‐state physics. The results are applicable to laser applications, fluorescence physics and chemistry, and metrology because the precise description of fluorescence is important in each of these fields. The results also provide an example of applied parameter‐estimation theory.