Leveraging a smartphone to perform time-gated luminescence measurements

by Brian E. Fratto, Emma L. Culver, Gabriel Davis, Robert Deans, John B. Goods, Sean Hwang, Nicole K. Keller, John A. Lawrence III, Alexander R. Petty, Timothy M. Swager, Joseph J. Walish, Zhengguo Zhu, Jason R. Cox

Empowered by advanced on-board sensors, high-performance optics packages and ever-increasing computational power, smartphones have democratized data generation, collection, and analysis. Building on this capacity, many platforms have been developed to enable its use as an optical sensing platform for colorimetric and fluorescence measurements. In this paper, we report the ability to enable a smartphone to perform laboratory quality time-resolved analysis of luminescent samples via the exploitation of the rolling shutter mechanism of the native CMOS imager. We achieve this by leveraging the smartphone’s standard image capture applications, commercially available image analysis software, and housing the device within a UV-LED containing case. These low-cost modifications enable us to demonstrate the smartphone’s analytical potential by performing tasks ranging from authentication and encryption to the interrogation of packaging, compounds, and physical phenomena. This approach underscores the power of repurposing existing technologies to extend the reach and inclusivity of scientific exploration, opening new avenues for data collection and analysis.