Figure 9. Factors That Contribute to the Recorded Photon Arrival Times.

Here, t_pul.k is the time of the pulse’s peak. Since pulses last for some time, they may excite the molecules at slightly different times. As such, we denote with t_ext.k the absorption time of the molecule triggering the k^th detection. Moreover, we denote with t_ems.k the emission time of the photon triggering the k^th detection. At last, on account of electronics limitations, the detection time, which we denote with t_det.k, may be different from t_ems.k. Here, the artifacts shown in gray originate from 2 sources: the left gray-shaded region is due to the width of the pulse, which leads to variation in the time of the molecular excitation, and the right gray-shaded region arises from the camera-dependent detection uncertainty. The time during which the fluorophore is excited (fluorescence lifetime) is shown in green. For more details, see also the Supplemental Experimental Procedures and Figure S12.