A solid fluorescence lifetime phantom standard for biophotonics applications

We present solid phantom recipe for fluorescence lifetime (FLT) standards using off the shelf dyes offering distinct, stable lifetimes from 0.80 to 3.61 ns. Three phantoms tools were created namely the homogeneous slides, slides with USAF resolution targets, and quadrant slides combining all four lifetimes. The phantoms were characterized for photostability, and fabrication repeatability, and are compatible with common excitation sources. These phantoms are designed for calibration and validation of FLIm systems, a use case demonstration was shown on benchmarking the performance of a chip-on-tip FLIm microcamera. Their reproducibility, and ease of use make them practical tools for advancing FLIm applications.