This article explains the basic principles of FLCS, a genuine fusion of Time-Correlated Single Photon Counting (TCSPC) and Fluorescence Correlation Spectroscopy (FCS), using common terms and minimum mathematics. The usefulness of the method is demonstrated on simple FCS experiments. The method makes possible to separate the autocorrelation function of individual components of a mixture of fluorophores, as well as purging the result from parasitic contributions like scattered light or detector afterpulsing.

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Two recent advances in optoelectronics, namely novel near-IR sensitive photomultipliers and inexpensive yet powerful diode-pumped solid-state lasers working at kHz repetition rate, enable the time-resolved detection of singlet oxygen (O2(a1Deltag)) phosphorescence in photon counting mode, thereby boosting the time-resolution, sensitivity, and dynamic range of this well-established detection technique. Principles underlying this novel approach and selected examples of applications are provided in this perspective, which illustrate the advantages over the conventional analog detection mode.

We report preliminary results on the analysis of the three-body Υ( 10860) → B Bπ, Υ(10860) → [B B * + c.c.]π and Υ(10860) → B * B * π decays including an observation of the Υ(10860) → Z ± b (10610)π ∓ → [B B * + c.c.] ± π ∓ and Υ(10860) → Z ± b (10650)π ∓ → [B * B * ] ± π ∓ decays as intermediate channels. We measure branching fractions of the three-body decays to be B(Υ(10860) → [B B * + c.c.] ± π ∓ ) = (28.3 ± 2.9 ± 4.6) × 10 −3 and B(Υ(10860) → [B * B * ] ± π ∓ ) = (14.1 ± 1.9 ± 2.4) × 10 −3 and set 90% C.L. upper limit B(Υ(10860) → [B B] ± π ∓ ) < 4.0 × 10 −3 . We also report results on the amplitude analysis of the three-body Υ(10860) → Υ(nS)π + π − , n = 1, 2, 3 decays and the analysis of the internal structure of the three-body Υ(10860) → h b (mP )π + π − , m = 1, 2 decays. The results are based on a 121.4 fb −1 data sample collected with the Belle detector at a center-of-mass energy near the Υ(10860).