Statistical analysis of excitation–emission matrices for laser-induced fluorescence spectroscopy

An algorithm for statistical processing of the set of multicomponent excitation–emission matrices for laser-induced fluorescence spectroscopy is proposed that is based on principal component analysis. It is shown for the first time that the fluorescence emission and excitation spectra of unknown fluorophores in optically thin samples can be calculated. Using the proposed algorithm, it is possible to pass from principal components with alternating signs to positive quantities corresponding to the spectra of real substances. The method is applied to a mixture of three fluorescent dyes, and it is demonstrated that the obtained spectra of principal components well reproduce the spectra of initial dyes.