The use of fluorescence lifetime of uranyl glass to determine absolute temperature prompted the development of two simple methods to measure this lifetime: the time-domain method and the frequency-domain-method. They both involve the use of inexpensive blue light-emitting diodes to induce fluorescence in the uranyl sample and a similar setup of function generator, oscilloscope and photodetectors. The time-domain method relies on generating a single rectangular pulse and then fitting the fluorescence decay curve to a single exponential to calculate the lifetime. The frequency-domain method relies on generating a pulse that varies sinusoidally with time. The excitation and fluorescence will both vary sinusoidally but there will be a phase shift which is directly related to the lifetime.

Each measurement was taken five times at room temperature and the results obtained by both methods agree with one another within experimental accuracy. However the time-domain method proved to be superior.